Collaborative Research: Cognitive skills and early learning from interactive media

Hollins University, Roanoke VA

Investigators

Abstract

The past decade has seen rapid growth in media use by infants and toddlers, and in marketing of educational media products for young children, yet researchers know little about how the use of media such as smart phones and tablets influences young children's development. For older children, educational media can foster school readiness through increased cognitive, language, and social skills, making it a valuable intervention tool for promoting successful school entry. For infants and toddlers, these benefits are less evident. Toddlers do learn from interactive media such as mobile applications under some circumstances, but the specific conditions that result in learning from screen media remain unclear. The studies supported by this grant are designed to identify whether, how, and for whom screen media can be educationally valuable. Two studies will explore: (1) the relation between children's gaze patterns and whether they learn while watching video and (2) the cognitive skills that predict toddlers' ability to learn from different media. The investigators will test how well toddlers (24-36 months) learn from different media, utilizing innovative approaches such as head-mounted eye tracking, which enables researchers to observe where children look while completing tasks. Of particular interest will be the extent to which individual differences in visual attention and cognitive skills predict toddlers' capacity to transfer from various screen media to real-life problems. It is expected that toddlers will learn more from video that is interactive, especially when interactive features help children focus attention on important information. It is further hypothesized that younger toddlers and those with poorly developed cognitive skills will benefit most from these applications. This work will inform the mechanisms by which screen-based learning occurs (or fails to occur) and address variability in toddlers' success in learning via electronic media. By establishing how and for whom screen media support learning, results from these studies may also inform the development of scalable, cost-effective interventions that capitalize on mass media to reach millions of children, especially those at risk of school failure.