ArticleJournal of children and media2021
How educational are 'educational' apps for young children? App store content analysis using the Four Pillars of Learning framework.
Article in Journal of children and media, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- The 'good mobile': a mobile launcher for children to facilitate human interactions.Biologia futura · 2026Article
- Parent personality, child temperament, and digital media: Pathways to language development in early childhood.Developmental psychology · 2026Article
- Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents: Policy Statement.Pediatrics · 2026Article
- Digital Ecosystems, Children, and Adolescents: Technical Report.Pediatrics · 2026Review
- Videos and Vocabulary: How Digital Media Use Impacts the Types of Words Children Know.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Supporting children's numeracy competencies and families' HNE: Exploring the role of apps and digital parent information in STEM vs. Non-STEM families.European journal of psychology of education = Journal europeen de psychologie de l'education · 2025Article
- Associations between sedentary types, sedentary patterns and cognitive ability in preschool children.European journal of pediatrics · 2024Article
- Screens and Preschools: The Bilingual English Language Learner Assessment as a Curriculum-Compliant Digital Application.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- YouTube for young children: What are infants and toddlers watching on the most popular video-sharing app?Frontiers in developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Advancing the understanding of children's digital engagement: responsive methodologies and ethical considerations in psychological research.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Association between the Taq1A polymorphism and problematic media use in preadolescent children.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Reexamining models of early learning in the digital age: Applications for learning in the wild.Journal of applied research in memory and cognition · 2023Article
- Applying the science of learning to EdTech evidence evaluations using the EdTech Evidence Evaluation Routine (EVER).NPJ science of learning · 2023Article
- Patterns of preschool children's screen time, parent-child interactions, and cognitive development in early childhood: a pilot study.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2023Article
- Parental Perceptions of Child's Play in the Post-Digital Era: Parents' Dilemma with Digital Formats Informing the Kindergarten Curriculum.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Longitudinal Associations Between Use of Mobile Devices for Calming and Emotional Reactivity and Executive Functioning in Children Aged 3 to 5 Years.JAMA pediatrics · 2023Article
- App-based learning for kindergarten children at home (Learning4Kids): Study protocol for cohort 2 and the school assessments.BMC pediatrics · 2022Article
- Quality of Mobile Apps for Child Development Support: Search in App Stores and Content Analysis.JMIR pediatrics and parenting · 2022Article
- Children aged 3-4 years were more likely to be given mobile devices for calming purposes if they had weaker overall executive functioning.Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992) · 2022Article
- Prevalence and Characteristics of Manipulative Design in Mobile Applications Used by Children.JAMA network open · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Experts have expressed concerns about the lack of evidence demonstrating that children's "educational" applications (apps) have educational value. This study aimed to operationalize Hirsh-Pasek, Zosh, et al.'s (2015) Four Pillars of Learning into a reliable coding scheme (Pillar 1: Active Learning, Pillar 2: Engagement in the Learning Process, Pillar 3: Meaningful Learning, Pillar 4: Social Interaction), describe the educational quality of commercially-available apps, and examine differences in educational quality between free and paid apps. We analyzed 100 children's educational apps with the highest downloads from Google Play and Apple app stores, as well as 24 apps most frequently played by preschool-age children in a longitudinal cohort study. We developed a coding scheme in which each app earned a value of 0-3 for each Pillar, defining lower-quality apps as those scoring ≤ 4, summed across the Four Pillars. Overall scores were low across all Pillars. Free apps had significantly lower Pillar 2 (Engagement in Learning Process) scores (t-test,
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.