How do Canadian parents evaluate numeracy content in math apps for young children?

ABSTRACT

Well-designed math apps can foster children’s numeracy development. Although parents are interested in using math apps for their children, the quantity and variability in quality of apps can make app selection challenging. As such, it is important to know how parents evaluate numeracy content in math apps for their children. This study investigated parents’ evaluations of four numeracy apps of varying quality. Forty-five parents of 3- to 6-year-old children explored each app for three minutes on their own device and rated each on 17 early numeracy skills. Parents were conservative in their ratings of numeracy skills. Likelihood of downloading apps ranged from 24.4% to 73%. If the first app viewed was of the highest quality, it influenced their subsequent ratings suggesting that parents could be using it as a benchmark. Individual differences affected numeracy ratings, such that parents high in both math teaching confidence and/or anxiety rated the apps more favourably than parents low in those traits. Parents experienced some challenges in identifying better content and design features and individual differences contributed to this. Outcomes also suggest practical supports such as providing parents with a “good” referent may aid app selection.

Impact Summary

Prior State of Knowledge

Well-designed numeracy apps can have positive effects on children’s academic abilities but many apps available are of poor quality. Despite interest in choosing math apps, it is unknown how parents evaluate numeracy features in their children’s math apps.

Novel Contributions

Parentsevaluated numeracy content in math apps for children. Parent ratings of numeracy content were compared with ratings by trained coders. The impact of parental anxiety and confidence on ratings and parental math app selection was examined.

Practical Implications

Parentsprovided conservative evaluations of numeracy content. Individual differences in math anxiety and teaching confidence indicates parental supports may be needed. Presenting a good or bad app first impacted ratings suggesting a potential tool for supporting parents’ app decisions.

KEYWORDS:

• Math
• numeracy development
• parents
• young children
• apps
• technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Note that specific research question 2 was a post-hoc exploratory research question.

2. Analyses were conducted using SPSS Version 27, except for the post-hoc test for the chi-squared test, which was conducted using Excel. Corrected Bonferroni values as provided by SPSS are reported. For the chi-square post hoc test, information about the correction is provided below Table 3.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicola Urquhart

Nicola Urquhart is a developmental psychology doctoral candidate at Wilfrid Laurier University who studies the use of educational technology for early cognitive development, including numeracy and literacy. She is interested in how individual factors, such as neurodiversity (e.g., autism) and parental teaching confidence might affect educational app use and choices. She is also interested in inclusive education in technology, home, and school contexts.

Joanne Lee

Joanne Lee is an Associate Professor in the department of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. As a developmental psychologist, her primary research interests are how technology influences cognitive development, early language and mathematics learning, and longitudinal associations between early childhood learning and later academic competence. Her secondary research interests include the impact of social media and technology on young adults and behavioural decision making.

Eileen Wood

Eileen Wood is a Full Professor in the Developmental area of the Psychology Department at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her primary research interests involve examining how children, youth, and adults (young through old) acquire, retain and recall information in educational contexts. Specifically, her research involves examining, evaluating and developing instructional strategies that facilitate learning and memory. This includes contexts where technology serves as an instructional tool.