Poster #237 - iLanguage: Quantity and Quality of Parent-Child Conversations and Smartphone Practices During Informal Educational Opportunities

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

Smart technology is integrated into the lives of families of all backgrounds (Zimmerman et al., 2007). Despite its ubiquity, few studies investigate family smartphone practices using parent and child measures in informal educational settings. Yet, the importance of parent-child interactions for children’s science learning while visiting informal science institutions (e.g., aquariums) is well-established (Haden, 2010). Parent-child conversations that are rich with elaborations and wh-questions during an event have particular importance for what the child learns, remembers, and recalls (Ornstein, Haden, & Hendrick, 2004). This pilot study used self-report, behavioral observations, and linguistic measures to describe the quantity and quality of parent-child conversations and parental smartphone use during an aquarium visit.

Twenty children (10 girls; Mage= 4.95 years; 40% Caucasian, 25% Latinx, 15% Asian, and 20% multiethnic) were observed and audio recorded with a parent (12 mothers, 8 fathers; Mage=34.80 years) in a local aquarium exhibit. Systematic observations recorded smartphone use and parent-child engagement. Parents reported via survey demographics, amount of smartphone use, and verbal engagement with child. Randomly selected audio recordings from one smartphone-user (SP) dyad and one smartphone-free (SF) dyad were transcribed verbatim; parent and child language was coded as follows: Language quantity measured the number of speaker turns. Quality of language included wh-questions that request new information (What is the orange one?), elaborative statements that add new information (There’s coral down there.), and yes/no questions. Conversation quality included responsiveness, contingent replies that continue the topic, non-contingent replies that change the topic, and imitations. Reliability will be established and reported in the proposed poster.

Results revealed that 10 parents used a smartphone in the exhibit, primarily for digital photography. In Table 1, SF parents were significantly more likely to report (87.9%) talking about the exhibit more than half the time; whereas SP parents were more likely to report talking with their child less than half the time (80%), chi-sq (2, N = 19) = 6.34, p = .012. Preliminary analysis (Table 2) of the conversations from two cases (one SP dyad and one SF dyad) shows the dyads were similar in conversation length in terms of minutes (6:47 vs. 6:55) and turns. However, differences in quality emerged. The SF dyad's elaborative statements comprised 26% of their conversational turns; whereas, the SP dyad’s elaborative statements were 14%. Notably, 14% of the SF parents’ turns were wh-questions, whereas the SP parent asked only 1 wh-question. Results showed similar levels of responsiveness, but differences in topic contingency emerged, with the SF parent and child both exhibiting high levels of contingency. In contrast, for the SP dyad, 14% and 39% of the parent’s and child’s replies, respectively, were non-contingent. We interpret the findings with caution given that the study is in the pilot phase; the full observational sample will be transcribed and coded for the poster. Nevertheless, differences in the quantity and quality of language reported here may have important implications for the developmental and educational trajectories of children whose parents do and do not engage in smartphone use during informal educational opportunities.

Authors

• Kimberly R Kelly, California State University Long Beach
  Presenting Author

• Grace Ocular, California State University Long Beach
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eva Drexler, California State University Long Beach
  Non-Presenting Author

• Heidi Alvarado, California State University Long Beach
  Non-Presenting Author