All tapped out: Touchscreen interactivity and young children's word learning

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Abstract

Touchscreen devices differ from passive screen media in promoting physical interaction with events on the screen. Two studies examined how young children's screen-directed actions related to self-regulation (Study 1) and word learning (Study 2). In Study 1, 30 2-year-old children's tapping behaviors during game play were related to their self-regulation, measured using Carlson's snack task: girls and children with high self-regulation tapped significantly less during instruction portions of an app (including object labeling events) than did boys and children with low self-regulation. Older preschoolers (N = 47, aged 4-6 years) tapped significantly less during instruction than 2-year-olds did. Study 2 explored whether the particular way in which 170 children (2-4 years of age) interacted with a touchscreen app affected their learning of novel object labels. Conditions in which children tapped or dragged a named object to move it across the screen required different amounts of effort and focus, compared to a non-interactive (watching) condition. Age by sex interactions revealed a particular benefit of dragging (a motorically challenging behavior) for preschool girls' learning compared to that of boys, especially for girls older than age 2. Boys benefited more from watching than dragging. Children from low socioeconomic status families learned more object names when dragging objects versus tapping them, possibly because tapping is a prepotent response that does not require thoughtful attention. Parents and industry experts should consider age, sex, self-regulation, and the physical requirements of children's engagement with touchscreens when designing and using educational content.

Figures

  • FIGURE 1 | Examples of novel objects for Study 1.
  • TABLE 1 | Mean (standard deviation) age (in months) for the three age groups by gender in Study 2.
  • FIGURE 2 | One pair of novel objects for Study 2: (A) during labeling; and (B) after labeling, during a dragging interaction.
  • TABLE 2 | Mean number of words (out of four) learned on the tablet and transferred to the real object for the three age groups in Study 2; standard deviations in parentheses.
  • FIGURE 3 | Number of words learned by children in Study 2 (all ages included) from the three SES groups in the three app interaction conditions, with age covaried. Children from low SES families (dotted line) learned significantly more words after dragging, compared to tapping, the named object on the screen.
  • FIGURE 4 | Word learning (assessed on the tablet) by boys and girls of all ages and SES groups in Study 2. With SES and age covaried, girls outperformed boys in the interactive drag condition, and boys learned significantly more in the non-interactive watch condition than in the interactive drag condition.

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CITATION STYLE

APA

Russo-Johnson, C., Troseth, G., Duncan, C., & Mesghina, A. (2017). All tapped out: Touchscreen interactivity and young children’s word learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(APR). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00578

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