Literature Review of Research on Digital Media for Early Childhood Education and Care

This paper aimed to review international and domestic studies on the use of digital media in ECEC environments. The review focused on: 1） an introduction to the rapidly changing digital environment surrounding young children and national guidelines of several countries pertaining to the use of technology with young children; 2） an overview of scholarly investigations on digital media in ECEC settings as an information receiving tool; 3） an examination of studies on digital media as a tool for exploration and expression; 4） an appraisal of domestic research endeavors on digital media in ECEC settings. Finally, the paper presented future directions for the research on the topics and shared ideas for the more effective application of technology for the education and care of young children

Effects of Playing Computerized versus Tactile Learning Games on Preschoolers’ Attention Skills and Comprehension: A Pilot Study

The ability to attend to relevant information and resist attention to distractors is important for children’s cognitive development. Much has been written in the news about the impact of electronic media on children’s development of attention skills, but little research has been done explicitly comparing children’s attention to relevant information and resistance to distractions across activities that are presented as either a computerized or tactile learning game. The goal of this study is to compare levels of attention and distraction among preschool-aged children while they engage in a common childhood activity, playing a board game that is either presented in a computerized or tactile format. Children’s basic comprehension of the game across conditions was also compared. Participants consisted of twelve families (N=12), each including one parent and one preschooler (Age 3-6). Participants were randomly assigned to either the computerized or tactile condition. The Linear Numbers Board Game (Siegler & Ramani, 2009), which has shown to be helpful in teaching children about the number line, was used as the task. Children’s attention, distraction, and understanding were coded to determine how computerized and tactile games affect these skills. Results suggested that older children attended more to the game regardless of the condition and also made fewer errors. However, children paid more attention and were less distracted in the tactile version of the game, but also had a harder time understanding the tactile version of the game

Affordances and limitations of electronic storybooks for young children's emergent literacy

AbstractStories presented on phones, tablets and e-readers now offer an alternative to print books. The fundamental challenge has become to specify when and for whom the manner in which children retain information from stories has been changed by electronic storybooks, for better and for worse. We review the effects of digitized presentations of narratives that include oral text as well as multimedia information sources (e.g., animations and other visual and sound effects, background music, hotspots, games, dictionaries) on children's emergent literacy. Research on preschool and kindergarten children has revealed both positive and negative effects of electronic stories conditional upon whether materials are consistent with the way that the human information processing system works. Adding certain information to electronic storybooks can facilitate multimedia learning, especially in children at-risk for language or reading difficulty. Animated pictures, sometimes enriched with music and sound, that match the simultaneously presented story text, can help integrate nonverbal information and language and thus promote storage of those in memory. On the other hand, stories enhanced with hypermedia interactive features like games and “hotspots” may lead to poor performance on tests of vocabulary and story comprehension. Using those features necessitates task switching, and like multitasking in general, seems to cause cognitive overload. However, in accordance with differential susceptibility theory, well-designed technology-enhanced books may be particularly suited to improve learning conditions for vulnerable children and turn putative risk groups into successful learners. This new line of research may have far-reaching consequences for the use of technology-enhanced materials in education

Television Is Still “Easy” and Print Is Still “Tough”? More Than 30 Years of Research on the Amount of Invested Mental Effort

We provide a literature overview of 30 years of research on the amount of invested mental effort (AIME, Salomon, 1984), illuminating relevant literature in this field. Since the introduction of AIME, this concept appears to have vanished. To obtain a clearer picture of where the theory of AIME has diffused, we conducted a literature search focusing on the period 1985–2015. We examined scientific articles (N = 244) that cite Salomon (1984) and content-analyzed their keywords. Based on these keywords, we identified seven content clusters: affect and motivation, application fields, cognition and learning, education and teaching, media technology, learning with media technology, and methods. We present selected works of each content cluster and describe in which research field the articles had been published. Results indicate that AIME was most commonly (but not exclusively) referred to in the area of educational psychology indicating its importance regarding learning and education, thereby investigating print and TV, as well as new media. From a methodological perspective, research applied various research methods (e.g., longitudinal studies, experimental designs, theoretical analysis) and samples (e.g., children, college students, low income families). From these findings, the importance of AIME for further research is discussed

The New Student: The Enhancement of an eBook to Support Emotional Connection

EBooks are a form of multimedia applications that encourage cognitive learning. Multimedia can also influence readers to have a deeper connection to the story. Understanding the influence of a static picture book versus an animated and audio guided eBook can prove valuable in developing learning media and other forms of content. In this research we take a published children\u27s book and apply the content into a multimedia eBook. The purpose of the creation of the eBook is to compare the interest of a reader on a story when static format, when some multimedia is added and when the story is completely animated. The method used shows how those interests were captured via an eye tracker and where the subjects\u27 eyes rested on the static book or the two other versions. Reaction time was also tracked that shows which version of the story held more attention. The major result shows a higher degree of attention is paid to the multimedia elements than the text of the book. The learning of this research is that multimedia enhances learning because it gets more attention

Reading comprehension evaluated through electronic storybooks and traditional print storybooks

The purpose of this study was to determine whether electronic text storybooks, when compared to printed storybooks, affect students\u27 comprehension skills. Reading comprehension is a process by which the reader constructs meaning with the text. With electronic texts, the computer is able to control the number of words that are displayed to allow the student to read at their own pace. Dramatization along with special text features used in electronic storybooks presents the text in a way that differs from the traditional printed storybook. These changes grasp the readers\u27 attention both visually and verbally. Eliminating the decoding of the text also permits the student to focus on comprehension. Whether the text is printed or electronic may impact the student\u27s reading comprehension skills. This was a quantitative study that was based solely on the results of comprehension test scores. The scores compared the printed text group with the electronic text group. After analysis of the scores, the central tendency scores were significantly higher in electronic storybook group versus the traditional text group. The mean, median, and the mode averaged between 8 and 12 points higher on the reading comprehension tests in the electronic storybook group. However, a t test for independent samples was also analyzed, but proved to be not significant at the .05 probability level

Spreminjajoča se vloga učbenikov v osnovnošolskem izobraževanju v digitalni dobi: česa se lahko naučimo s pomočjo raziskav branja

Textbooks have been the primary teaching tool since the 19th century. By their nature, they contained a comprehensive compilation of the content of a particular subject with the intention of explaining it; this knowledge, in turn, was usually filtered to conform to a particular society’s expectations of elementary knowledge about the natural and social environments. There has been a great deal of research on how the content of textbooks has changed in line with changing values in different societies and over different periods. However, little research has been done on how textbook reading substrates and design have changed and how these changes have affected learning and comprehension: studies that systematically examined the effects of different reading substrates and different layouts on reading and learning comprehension did not appear until the late 20th century and early 21st century. We examine such studies and PISA 2021 results to draw five conclusions for future textbook research. These conclusions indicate that screens are worse than printed texts for some types of reading, while interactivity and dynamic design are not values per se but require coherent design to improve reading performance and higher-level thinking skills. (DIPF/Orig.

A Cross-Cultural Qualitative Study on Students’ Attitudes towards Computer-Assisted Language Learning

This cross-cultural qualitative study investigated the attitudes and perceptions of language students towards computer-assisted language learning (CALL). We examined the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of CALL in language education according to Iranian and Spanish students’ perceptions and attitudes. In addition, we found out the differences between Iranian and Spanish language students’ perceptions and attitudes towards CALL. The participants were 237 language students, and the researchers applied an online 10 open-ended question instrument for data collection and a SWOT analysis for data analysis. The findings of the content analysis revealed that many language students in Iran and Spain approved that CALL provides a wide range of tools, resources and materials for language learning. Among many pedagogical implications, this study suggests more CALL programs in order to enhance students’ CALL literacy