A New Framework to Identify Truly ‘Educational’ Apps

[Commentary] Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Jennifer Zosh examine the issue of the difficulty in finding education apps in their paper "Putting the Education in “Educational” Apps: Lessons from the Science of Learning." Hirsh-Pasek and Zosh distill their years of research to create four principles, or pillars, of learning based on the areas where the research converges. The authors suggest that use of the four pillars can provide a new basis from which to evaluate existing “wave one” apps, and from which to develop new “wave two” apps. The four pillars of learning put forth by the researchers are:

Active involvement: The app must require thinking and intellectual manipulation that goes beyond mindless swiping or scrolling.
Engagement with learning materials: According to the authors, three elements of an “engaging” app are: Contingent interactions (each touch of the screen receives an immediate response), extrinsic motivation and feedback (response to child’s actions with clapping or moving to a next level), and intrinsic motivation (channel a player’s unique abilities).
Meaningful experiences: Meaning is based on the quality and quantity of connections between the app experience and the wider experience of a child’s life.
Social interaction: Social interaction itself enables learning, and social contingency, the back and forth of interaction, is a key factor in learning.

Hirsh-Pasek and Zosh’s four pillars of the Science of Learning are a logical and sensical basis from which to evaluate existing apps and develop new apps.


A New Framework to Identify Truly ‘Educational’ Apps