Innovations in Evidence and Analysis: The PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform and the Research It Supports

• In Event: 2-216 - What have we learned from Ready To Learn?

Integrative Statement

The PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform can collect, store, and support the analysis of data gathered as children engage with media. Kids simply go about the business of being kids as they play PBS KIDS games and videos, but under the hood a growing number (currently approximately 50) can use the PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform to gather anonymous information about game play. The granularity of the data collected by the PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform ranges from simple information about whether a game was played or a video was watched, to very detailed information about user actions, the game’s reactions, and the details of how things like puzzles and challenges change over time as kids play with them.

The authors are a blended interdisciplinary team that represent content, product, technology, science, education, and data analysis expertise. We will describe several new and exciting lines of research, along with the data that are collected by the PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform to support it. To illustrate our points, we use examples from several games: (1) selected games from the “Curious George Busy Day” suite of games, (2) the “PBS KIDS Measure Up!” app, and (3) the Ruff Ruffman “Fish Force” game.

In a first example (Curious George), we present evidence that game play can relate meaningfully to children’s performance on standardized test items related to numbers and counting concepts. In a second example (Measure Up!), we use game play data to help identify the specific interactions that promote learning around measurement concepts. In a third example (Fish Force - adaptivity), we use game play data to power an individualized learning experience that adjusts difficulty to match a player’s skill around force and motion concepts. And in a fourth example (Fish Force - bounce rates), we use game play data to identify problem areas that are negatively affecting player engagement, inform the design process, and improve the game play. Table 1 summarizes key information about the studies.

The common theme across each of these examples is that high value research supporting the goals of the Ready To Learn program is made possible by the new and detailed game play data gathered by the PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform. Preliminary research activities look promising and have led to increasing confidence and investment in using data from the PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform. The data gathered from play is relevant to the study of how kids use PBS KIDS media, what kids can do, what they struggle with, what they are learning, and how the media can tailor itself to provide the best playful learning experience possible for each kid. Because of the experimental and promising nature of this work and its broader use in the field of educational research, we highlight the kinds of questions we are exploring and the resulting insights that have been developed through the study of the PBS KIDS Learning Analytics Platform data.

Authors

• Jeremy Roberts, PBS
  Presenting Author

• Charles Parks, UCLA-CRESST
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gregory Chung, UCLA-CRESST
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Redman, UCLA-CRESST
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katerina Schenke, UCLA-CRESST
  Non-Presenting Author

• Cosimo Felline, PBS
  Non-Presenting Author