Poster #239 - Parent-Child Collaborative Engagement During Digital Tabletop Play in a Children’s Museum

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Learning in a children’s museum is a social process of interacting with people and materials (Falk & Dierking, 2012). As technology becomes more common in museum exhibit design, some research has examined how interactive digital multi-touch tabletop platforms, in particular, encourage collaborative learning among visitors (Antle & Wise, 2013; Fleck et al., 2009; Rick, Marshall, & Yuill, 2011). Results suggest multi-touch tabletops influence collaborative learning by fostering reflective conversations (Jamil et al., 2011) and equitable participation among participants (Harris et al., 2009), and allowing parallel individual interactions with the tabletop (Rogers et al., 2009). However, designing effective multi-touch tabletops that promote collaborative learning is challenging, and few studies have evaluated efficacy of tabletop-based learning experiences (D’Angelo, Pollock, & Horn, 2015). Additionally, most museum visitor research focuses on individual experiences over visitor interactions (Hope et al., 2009). This poster examines the extent to which multi-touch tabletop gameplay in a children’s museum promotes parent-child collaborative engagement.

Study Design. The study takes place in a skatepark-themed exhibit in a children’s museum designed to provide opportunities for families and children (ages 5-8) to engage with concepts of mass, momentum, gravity, friction, and force in the context of skateboarding. One element of the exhibit is a digital, interactive, multi-touch tabletop that encourages visitors to design and test a virtual skatepark, complete with a skater avatar, built-in learning challenges, and opportunities to tinker, redesign, and retest as desired. The study specifically examines parent-child collaborative engagement of 30 parent-child dyads with the interactive tabletop game using three measures: 1) holding time, 2) social balance, and 3) active play, adapted from Horn and colleagues (2012). Holding time is the length of time a dyad is engaged with the tabletop exhibit. Social balance examines individual and group interaction with the tabletop (e.g., the sum of individual interaction times ti , divided by the product of group interaction time T, and the size of the group n). Social balance provides a quantitative overview of parent-child collaboration with the exhibit, with a score range of 0 to 1. Active play is measured using codes for: 1) Joint Gameplay (e.g., dyads working toward the same goal, jointly and at same time), 2) Parallel Gameplay (e.g., dyads working toward separate goals independently) coded in one of two ways as Coordinated Parallel (e.g., dyads have different roles that are articulated and agreed upon) or Non-Coordinated Parallel (e.g., dyads are working independently with tabletop gameplay), 3) One-player Engaged (e.g., one partner is actively playing game and one partner is watching passively), and 4) No Interaction (e.g., when there is zero verbal [talking, laughing] or nonverbal interaction [eye contact, gameplay] with partner or tabletop).

Findings. Preliminary analysis of 7 parent-child dyads suggests: holding time ranges >1 min to 19 mins; high rates of Joint Gameplay (one measure of active play) of 32% - 98% of total play; and high levels of social balance with simultaneous active participation observed in all dyads (all scores >0.5), indicating high levels of collaborative interactive time between parent-child dyads.

Authors

• Salloni Nanda, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Kristen Nicole Missall, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Caitlin Courshon, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Benjamin DeVane, University of Iowa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeremy Dietmeier, University of iowa
  Non-Presenting Author