Can Touchscreen Devices be Used to Facilitate Young Children's Learning? A Meta-Analysis of Touchscreen Learning Effect

Resource type
Journal Article
Authors/contributors
Title
Can Touchscreen Devices be Used to Facilitate Young Children's Learning? A Meta-Analysis of Touchscreen Learning Effect
Abstract
Because of the continuous stream of touchscreen apps that are claimed to be educational and the increasing use of touchscreen devices in early childhood, considerable attention is being paid to the effect of touchscreens on young children’s learning. However, the existing empirical findings in young child samples are not consistent. In this meta-analysis we tested the overall effect of touchscreen devices on young children’s (0- to 5-year-olds) learning performance, as well as moderators of this effect, based on 36 empirical articles (79 effect sizes) involving 4,206 participants. The overall analysis showed a significant touchscreen learning effect (d = 0.46), indicating that young children indeed benefited from touchscreen learning. Interestingly, age, learning material domain, comparison group, and experimental environment significantly moderated the effect of touchscreen devices on young children’s learning outcome. These findings shed light on the role of touchscreen-related physical experience in early childhood education.
Publication
Frontiers in Psychology
Volume
9
Pages
2580
Date
2018-12-18
Journal Abbr
Front. Psychol.
Language
en
ISSN
1664-1078
Short Title
Can Touchscreen Devices be Used to Facilitate Young Children's Learning?
Accessed
27/09/2022, 11:59
Library Catalogue
DOI.org (Crossref)
Citation
Xie, H., Peng, J., Qin, M., Huang, X., Tian, F., & Zhou, Z. (2018). Can Touchscreen Devices be Used to Facilitate Young Children’s Learning? A Meta-Analysis of Touchscreen Learning Effect. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2580. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02580
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