Alone is good but with guidance is better: Children learn about camouflage by using an app

OLGA PERALTA; GABRIELA RAYNAUDO

Encuentro; 26th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development; 2020

New digital devices and apps are launched daily promising to promote learning and to stimulate children´s cognitive development. However, recent studies have evaluated the effects of using apps in learning with disappointing results, as children did not learn what was promised. In addition, social interaction has been considered essential in toddlers? learning with digital devices. The aim of this research was to study preschoolers? learning with an app. We compared the impact of different types of narrations on children?s learning of a concept. The narrations instructed children in the concept of camouflage and guided the execution of the task. We established three conditions: audio recorded-narration, face-to-face narration, and guided narration. In a pre-test-intervention-post-test design, we taught 4-year-old children the concept of camouflage. Results showed that some children learned the concept using the digital device on their own while listening to the recorded narration, although for most children, adult guidance became crucial.