Young children learning with mobile devices: Research on design and implementation

The increasing growth and usage of mobile devices, such as tablets and iPads, by young children has not yet been accompanied by systematic research about the effects they have on children's learning and the conditions that facilitate or hinder learning and engagement. As a result, only few empirically-based guidelines exist to guide parents, educators, and application (app) designers when choosing or designing apps for young children, often leading to non-evidence-based decisions, or the design of apps with little educational value. This symposium aims to bring together researchers from Australia, the UK and USA to discuss what evidence exist about the learning potential of mobile devices and apps for young children and how it could be used to inform relevant stakeholders

Game Appropriation: Where does the gamer fit?

The socio-technological transformation of digital games means that they are no longer single-player, co-located game experiences but instead are multiplayer socially-oriented ones (e.g. World of Warcraft). This change underpins the central concern of this thesis, to understand game appropriation and the intrinsically motivating nature of gaming. Game appropriation is defined as the broad incorporation of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) into gamers’ daily practices, including the nature of their gameplay. Gaming is not viewed as a set of defined moments of participation but as a dynamic activity, directly interrelated with a gamers’ everyday life. Therefore, a broad perspective on motivation and gaming is adopted, incorporating not only reinforcing aspects of game design but also acknowledging the role of the social context and the gamer as an individual during gameplay. The findings of three studies showed that game design, social interaction and gamers’ psychological characteristics uniquely interplay to support game appropriation. The key findings are: (i) Flexible game design is a prerequisite for game appropriation; multiple game structures enable the creation of collaborative and competitive relationships and contribute to innovative forms of play; (ii) Diverse forms of social interaction, within and around gameplay, define the nature of game appropriation; (iii) The role of the gamer in game appropriation is critical. The gamer as an individual is the agent defining the distinct social forms of play when shaping the game experience, underpinned by certain psychological characteristics. While gamers with higher trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) play for social interaction per se, those with lower trait EI make purposive use of sociality in order to progress and succeed in the game. Similarly, on a needs scale (Basic Psychological Needs Scale) lower scorers on autonomy are more prone to competitive and instrumental social gaming practices; (iv) The process of game appropriation is progressively developed, influenced by the type of in-game activities and novel game features, trait EI scores and the presence of other gamers in the game. In summary, game appropriation, being game-specific, begins with the interaction between the gamer and a flexible game design and becomes socially negotiated within a community of gamers. The final social configuration -instrumental or social per se- is influenced by certain psychological characteristics of gamers as individuals

Tomorrow’s World nQuire: young people’s requirements for engaging with inquiry-led, civic engagement technologies

Citizen inquiry describes the learning benefits to people who engage actively in inquiry-led investigations. The Tomorrow’s world nQuire project, a collaboration between The Open University and the BBC in the UK, utilises the citizen inquiry paradigm to design an online platform to support large-scale public experiments, linked to TV or radio programmes. Scaffolding the investigations has been a challenging task, exploiting technology affordances that integrate guidance for inquiry-led activities and mass collaborative participation. The aim of this study is to examine the usability of an early version of the platform and understand, in particular, how young people aged 16 to 18 in particular perceive technologies that support inquiry-led social science investigations. Outcomes revealed that there is a preference by the majority of the young participants to use mobile devices for accessing the platform. This finding emphasises the importance of mobilised learning and mobile-friendly design for engaging teenagers with inquiry-led activities

Mobile games and science learning: A comparative study of 4 and 5 years old playing the game Angry Birds

A popular activity among young children is the use of mobile devices and apps. Yet, the impact of mobile devices on learning and development is rather underexplored. The limited studies identified explore effects on literacy development and communication and report on mixed findings. A considerable gap is observed as to how the use of mobile apps relates to young children's understanding in diverse domains including science learning, and to extend, whether and how mobile apps should be used and how in early years' settings. The aim of this paper is to shed light on this area by examining the learning effects of touch screen mobile game applications, in particular the game Angry Birds, on two groups of preschoolers 4 and 5 years old respectively. Evidence from a comparative study with 32 participants reveal significant differences between the two groups in terms of game skills and their understanding of projectile motion. Implications for educational stakeholders, parents and app designers are discussed along with future research directions

Introducing citizen inquiry

The term ‘citizen inquiry’ was coined to describe ways that members of the public can learn by initiating or joining shared inquiry-led scientific investigations (Sharples et al., 2013). It merges learning through scientific investigation with mass collaborative participation exemplified in citizen science activities, altering the relationship most people have with research from being passive recipients to becoming actively engaged, and the relationship between scholarship and public understanding from dissemination towards cooperation. Through the presentation of empirical studies, this edited volume introduces concepts and practices of citizen inquiry

MAD Learn: An Evidence-based Affordance Framework to Assessing Learning Apps

Existing recommendations about how to select or design mobile applications (apps) for learning have been heavily relied on customer and teacher reviews, designer descriptions, and educational theories. There is a lack of evaluation frameworks that are informed by research evidence of how different children interact and use apps. The first version of an evidence-based framework, coined as MAD learn, is presented detailing affordances that hinder or help children’s learning, as emerged from relevant studies. To encourage further studies in the field, not only by researchers but also designers and practitioners, a methodological approach to iteratively assess the affordances of mobile apps is also introduced. This is based on (a) visualising the learning design and learning components of a given app and (b) analysing the screen and audio recordings of children’s interactions with apps. The proposed approach has been tested with 17 children 5-6 years old who interacted with a maths app. The analysis captured patterns of actual usage, including time spent on different activities, completion rates, communication instances, and number and type of mistakes. Insights revealed that certain design affordances, including instructions, feedback, and help-on-demand, were differently perceived by children, in some cases helping learning while, in others, hindering it

Online Citizen Science: A Systematic Review of Effects on Learning and Scientific Literacy

Participation in online citizen science is increasingly popular, yet studies that examine the impact on participants’ learning are limited. The aims of this paper are to identify the learning impact on volunteers who participate in online citizen science projects and to explore the methods used to study the impact. The ten empirical studies, examined in this systematic review, report learning impacts on citizens’ attitudes towards science, on their understanding of the nature of science, on topic-specific knowledge, on science knowledge, and on generic knowledge. These impacts were measured using self-reports, content analysis of contributed data and of forum posts, accuracy checks of contributed data, science and project-specific quizzes, and instruments for measuring scientific attitudes and beliefs. The findings highlight that certain technological affordances in online citizen science projects can cultivate citizens’ knowledge and skills, and they point to unexplored areas, including the lack of experimental and long-term studies, and studies in formal education settings

STEM Learning: Futures

Following on from the account of some CALRG research related to STEM learning in the previous chapter we discuss here several examples of attempts to explore the technology and pedagogy of learning science. In one thread we look at informal learning and linking journeys between formal and informal learning and how we have built on previous work on developing inquiry learning. In the second we look at a design to support collaborative working at a distance building on our previous work on learning from simulations. The case studies in this chapter illustrate the persistent intent of supporting science learners and a shared vision of the range of support under development for this end

A randomised control study about the effects of different assessment registration encouragements

Despite their potential to robustly evaluate the effects of educational interventions, Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) in education, particularly in assessment and evaluation in blended or distance learning studies, are scarce. This proposal reports the implementation of a RCT to evaluate the effectiveness of a short-scale intervention (i.e., motivational encouragement) which aimed to improve students' attendance of final exam, completion and pass rates in four online language courses. Results revealed that the specific intervention was not adequate to improve students' performance and attendance. More studies are needed to identify the types of interventions that would elicit positive learning outcomes. To assist practitioners with the implementation of RCTs in education, a learning analytics framework (Analytics4Action Evaluation Framework) is described

What characteristics of the gamers' profile should be taken into account in player-centred game design?

In this paper, we introduce the theory of trait Emotional Intelligence ('trait EI') as a personality theory that could assist in exemplifying the gamers' profile and contribute to the design of player-center game experiences. Data from two studies (a game-specific and a game-general one) led to a number of player-centered playability principles that could inform the design of adaptable games and games targeting specific gaming audiences. The gamers' emotional characteristics were found to be of prominent importance to the design of good games