Drawing across media: A cross-sectional experiment on preschoolers’ drawings produced using traditional versus electronic mediums.

Abstract

Young children’s growing access to touchscreen technology represents one of many contextual factors that may influence development. The focus of the current study was the impact of traditional versus electronic drawing materials on the quality of children’s drawings during the preschool years. Young children (2–5 years, N = 73) and a comparison group of adults (N = 24) copied shapes using three mediums: marker on paper, stylus on touchscreen tablet, finger on touchscreen tablet. Drawings were later deemed codable or uncodable (e.g., scribbles), and codable drawings were then scored for subjective quality on a 4-point scale. Girls and older children (vs. boys and younger children) produced more codable drawings; however, this gap closed when children drew with their finger on a tablet. Medium also affected the quality of adults’ drawings, favoring marker on paper. Thus, drawing on a tablet helped younger children produce drawings but resulted in lower quality drawings among adults. These findings underscore the importance of considering environmental constraints on drawing production. Moreover, since clinical assessments often include measures of drawing quality, and sometimes use tablet computers for drawing, these findings have practical implications for education and clinical practice.

New indices to characterize drawing behavior in humans (Homo sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

“…Three-year-old children appeared to become quickly bored; their use of the tablet was different to that of their older counterparts, who clearly used it as a drawing support. The role of the tablet as medium and the use of fingers as tools could influence several components of the drawing including its efficiency 42 . Finger drawing seems to require less motor control than tools drawing, making it easier for the youngest children to produce more codable, efficient drawings, at least when they copy simple shapes 42 .…”

“…The role of the tablet as medium and the use of fingers as tools could influence several components of the drawing including its efficiency 42 . Finger drawing seems to require less motor control than tools drawing, making it easier for the youngest children to produce more codable, efficient drawings, at least when they copy simple shapes 42 . However, finger drawing may be more difficult for older children and adults, who are more accustomed to draw with brushes or pencils resulting in less qualitative drawings.…”

“…To study and apprehend the variability of these drawing indices, the variables group (age), gender, test condition, gender-condition interaction and/or the group-condition interaction were used. The gender effect has already been proved to influence drawing in different ways [42][43][44] . We tested the gender-condition interaction since we thought that, especially for children, the drawing's variables could be different according condition between girls and boys.…”

Preschoolers' beliefs about media technologies: The role of family income

“…This could be due to a cohort effect, reflecting increasing access to mobile media devices. For example, a more recent study found that children were more likely to choose a tablet than a piece of paper for free drawing (Kirkorian et al, 2020). It is interesting to note that the tablet preference was not observed uniformly across tasks in our sample.…”

Preschool screen-media usage predicts mental imagery two years later

“…Specifically, prompts provided by interactive electronic books can support learning (Strouse & Ganea, 2017), especially for low SES families (Linebarger, 2005). Some work demonstrates that screenmedia can improve children's vocabulary (Rice, Huston, Truglio, & Writhgt, 1990), narrative skill (Linebarger & Piotrowski, 2009), and copying (Kirkorian et al, 2020). Although very young children have difficulty acquiring new words from screen media (Krcmar, Grela, & Lin, 2007;Robb, Richert, & Wartella, 2009).…”