Poster #22 - Investigating the Utility of a Math Home Intervention with Low-Income Families

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

A prior study with families that varied in socioeconomic status (SES) (30% of families with an income < $50,000) examined the effects of a math story problems app on children’s math learning compared to a parallel reading story problems app. Both apps presented story passages and related questions for parents and their child to do together at home. The questions either focused on math problems or reading comprehension, varying in difficulty. Children with the math app were found to have significantly increased their math achievement at school compared to the reading (control) group, particularly when parents were math anxious (Berkowitz et al., 2015).

In this study, the same math app intervention was given to a cohort of low-SES families (80% of families with an income < $50,000) to reduce inequity in home environments. However, across both the math condition and the reading condition, low-SES families used the app much less on average than in the original study (< 1/week, with many not using it at all). Given this, it is not surprising that we did not see any significant effects related to condition.

To investigate the factors behind the low app usage, we recruited a subset of 70 parents from the low-SES sample to interview about their app experience. We asked them to explain why they did or did not use the app regularly, and to share any suggestions for improvement. We found that more than half of parents (56%) reported time conflicts as a barrier to app use, and about a third of parents (30%) stated that issues related to technology use also prevented them from using the app regularly. Both disclosures of time constraints X2 (1, N = 70) = 0.7, p = .40, and technical issues, X2 (1, N = 70) = 0.02, p = .87, did not significantly differ between the math app and the reading app conditions. However, families did differ in their responses related to their child’s engagement with the app. Specifically, more families who had the math app described their child as having negative attitudes towards using the app (math 38%, reading 26%), and suggested adding features to the app, like incentives for correct answers, to increase their child’s motivation to use the app (math 36%, reading 19%). The total proportion of parents that reported comments and/or suggestions related to their child’s lack of engagement with the app was significantly different between the two conditions X2 (1, N=70) = 5.23, p = .022 (see Table 1). These findings suggest that designing interventions that can be easily incorporated into existing family routines may be more effective at enhancing the home math learning environment for low-SES families than activities that require additional resources like time or technology. Additionally, our results suggest that there may be a higher bar for engaging families with math focused activities than with reading focused activities, so the integration of these types of activities should be considered, such as incorporating math into engaging storybooks (Carrazza & Levine, in prep).

Authors

• Dania Smithstein, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Yu Zhang, University of Chicago

• Susan Cohen Levine, University of Chicago