Learning apps at home prepare children for school

• In Event: Using Family Routines to Improve Children’s Literacy and Math Skills and Parenting Practices

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic not only had a major impact on the economic systems and individuals’ well-being worldwide, it also emphasized the need for high-quality digital learning opportunities from very young age to adulthood. In particular, (pre-)school and kindergarten children were restricted in their attendance of formal educational contexts in many countries. Consequently, it is to be expected that the pandemic also had a detrimental impact on children’s academic learning (Masonbrink & Hurley, 2020).
In addition to formal educational contexts, the home learning environment and thus the family is the most important setting that can support young children’s competencies development (Niklas & Schneider, 2017). Here, early interventions have the potential to make a difference for children’s competencies development. In particular in a digital society, new ways to support children’s competencies are conceivable. For instance, the usage of high-quality learning applications (apps) at home may increase children’s mathematical and literacy competencies (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015).
Previous studies have been successful in using learning apps in laboratory settings or apps that focus on one specific learning target only (Berkowitz et al., 2015; Maertens et al., 2016). However, some limitations apply to previous studies. For instance, they were either not externally valid, they focused on literacy or numeracy learning only, they did not assess intervention fidelity, they used single apps, or they did not control for relevant child and family characteristics. Our study overcame all these limitations in a largescale family intervention study.
In our German randomized-control study, Intervention families (n = 302) in two cohorts (Ntotal = 500; M(SD)age = 61.0(4.6) months; n♀ = 302) received tablets with newly developed learning apps focusing either on mathematical or literacy learning for every-day usage at home across half a kindergarten year. Compared with two control groups with and without tablets, children in the intervention groups significantly enhanced their specific competencies (η²numeracy/literacy = .03/.09), even when controlled for various child and family characteristics (see Fig. 1 & 2).
The app usage was assessed via mobile sensing (for detailed information about mobile sensing and its application, please refer to Birtwistle et al., 2022). Here, an app was used to measured the exact time that a learning app was in the foreground of the display of the study tablet. Consequently, we were able to assess the exact usage time for each tablet and each app. For the mathematical and the literacy intervention group, the total app usage time was calculated and used in the analyses. Here, higher app usage was associated with greater gains (ΔR² = .01-.02) even when controlled for child age, sex, and intelligence and for family migration background and socio-economic status. We demonstrated that a digital, tablet-based family intervention with newly developed learning apps that are designed according to educational and psychological theories (see Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015) was able to improve children’s development of both literacy and numeracy competencies and facilitate children’s cognitive school readiness. Consequently, an easy-to-apply intervention in the family supports children’s development of cognitive competencies and prepares them for school.

Authors

• Frank Niklas, LMU Munich
  Presenting Author

• Astrid Wirth

• Anna Mues

• Efsun Birtwistle, LMU Munich