Using Touchscreen Tablets to Help Young Children Learn to Tell Time.

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Educational Technology
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Increasing use of handheld touchscreen devices by young children.
• Limited empirical evidence on the educational impact of touchscreens on early learning.
• Need to understand how touchscreen interactions affect children's skill acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if touchscreens aid in teaching young children to tell time.
• To assess the extent to which learning on touchscreens transfers to other mediums.
• To compare learning outcomes across different testing environments.

Main Methods:

• Pre- and post-test design with 65 children aged 5–6 years.
• 10-minute exposure to an iPad touchscreen application for time-telling.
• Three testing groups: iPad touchscreen, toy clock, and paper clock drawing.

Main Results:

• Significant improvement in time-telling scores after touchscreen exposure.
• Evidence of successful transfer of learned skills from touchscreen to physical and drawn clocks.
• Children tested on paper drawings performed less well than those tested on iPad or toy clocks.

Conclusions:

• Touchscreen devices can be effective tools for early childhood education, specifically in teaching time-telling.
• Children demonstrate the ability to generalize skills learned via touchscreens to different formats.
• While touchscreens support learning, the medium of assessment may influence performance outcomes.