Why this app: Can a video‐based intervention help parents identify quality educational apps?

Abstract

Researchers recommend that parents look for five benchmarks as indicators of quality educational apps (ie, scaffolding, curriculum, development team, feedback, learning theory), yet results show that parents undervalue some of these benchmarks. The current study examined if a short video‐based intervention would enhance parents' value‐judgements of apps featuring the five educational benchmarks. In original and modified app experiments (n = 100; n = 101), parents of children 4–11 years old were randomly assigned to watch either a 9‐minute video that detailed how the five benchmarks augment learning, or a 2‐minute control video. Parents evaluated 10 simulated apps containing either benchmarks or buzzwords. The original app experiment shows that a brief intervention can help parents identify quality educational apps via the benchmarks, but the modified app experiment suggests it only works if developers are using specific keywords in app descriptions. Helping parents select quality educational apps is more complicated than simply telling them what to look for. What is already known about this topic Parents have a main role in selecting apps and deciding on how often children use them; however, they have difficulty evaluating an app's educational potential in a market mixed with high‐ and low‐quality products that lacks a standard for including educational apps on the App Store. There are five research‐based benchmarks that are indicators of quality educational apps. These include apps created by an interdisciplinary development team, having a guiding curriculum with a clear purpose, including scaffolding and feedback, and being based on a learning theory. However, parents are not valuing all of these educational benchmarks equally. Educational videos disseminated via YouTube have become an established medium to enhance people's knowledge. Mayer's cognitive theory of multimedia learning, which suggests that people learn better when there is both auditory and visual information given together, is a framework used to design educational videos. What this paper adds This study leveraged a useful, accessible medium (ie, educational YouTube videos) to make research on educational apps accessible enough such that it could influence parents' app selection. Parents of children aged 4–11 years‐old viewed either an educational intervention‐ or control‐video and assessed educational apps through measures that replicate how consumers evaluate apps on the App Store (ie, their willingness to download the app, how much they would pay, their rating, and ranking). Original and modified app experiments demonstrate that a brief, educational video designed using key features from Mayer's multimedia theory can improve parents' app selection. In the original app experiment, parents in the intervention group are valuing the guiding curriculum and development team benchmarks over others, which may be due to the structure of the intervention video (ie, worked‐examples immediately after pre‐training of benchmarks). In the modified...

Mommy, Can I Play Outside? How Urban Design Influences Parental Attitudes on Play

“…However, after viewing advertisements about the (fake) learning benefits of electronic toys, parents changed their preference to favoring electronic toys. A similar pattern is found in parents’ behavior in downloading apps; the top downloads are those which clearly tout their learning benefits, regardless of whether clear evidence supports the claim [ 110 , 111 ]. This is in contrast to ordinary play, which—as we discussed in Section 2 —carries clear benefits in physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development.…”