Joint Media Engagement

Young children’s learning is enhanced considerably when they have positive support from adults. For example, when children are beginning the process of learning to read, they can really benefit from reading with an adult or older sibling, who can help them process the text, support their reading comprehension and support them to make appropriate inferences from their understanding of the text. In the same way, we believe that supporting this crucial parent-child interaction while they are playing with apps like the Applaydu app will enhance the child’s learning experience and outcomes.

So far we have begun looking at this by preparing a survey that is available to parents or adults of children who use Applaydu. This survey asks general questions about how the child and the adult use technology and apps like Applaydu. We are going to be able to use the results of this survey to help generate further content for Applaydu aimed at supporting this key interaction between adults and children. We will also be investigating whether and to what extent our newly developed content will facilitate positive joint media engagement. We are confident that this work will be invaluable to our general understanding of how positive interaction can be supported through learning through apps. 

Summary

Some of the things we aim to find out in the JME research stream are: 

1. How often adults and children engage in JME and what that JME ‘looks like’ (i.e. which kinds of behaviours do parents engage in when using digital media together with their children) 
2. Which child, parent and family characteristics and attitudes predict the frequency of JME and different JME behaviours 
3. Which design features of touchscreen games, apps and e-books influence JME 
4. Whether is JME sensitive to intervention and how it can be improved (via touchscreen game, app or e-book design) to support child learning. 

Our first stages of work involve a survey of parents, a systematic review of research evidence, a review of existing apps and consultation with stakeholders. We will use this information to develop two or three different app, e-book or digital game features, designed to enhance parent-child interactions. These features will be tested (e.g. through observation and parent interviews) and one design chosen for further refinement and evaluation via a randomised controlled trial. This trial will use an intervention and control group design to assess the impact of the design feature on parent-child interactions.

Keep an eye on this page for preliminary results and publications as they arise.