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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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FINE Newsletter, Volume VI, Issue 1
Issue Topic: How Families Can Enrich Digital Media Learning Experiences for Their Children

Voices From the Field

Harvard Family Research Project recently spoke with Lori Takeuchi, Director of Research for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, to find out what she had learned about families’ and children’s educational-media use from the Center’s 2014 study on the subject, reported by Victoria Rideout in Learning at Home: Families’ Educational Media Use in America. The report shares findings from a nationally representative survey of 1,577 parents of children ages 2 to 10 years. We also asked Lori how families are selecting educational media for their children and what practitioners can do to support families in their choices

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What did you learn about parents’ perceptions of their children’s use of educational media?

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We learned that parents considered almost half of the screen media that their 2- to 10-year-olds used to be “educational,” which we had defined fairly openly as “content that ‘is good for their child’s learning or growth, or that teaches some type of lesson, such as an academic or social skill.’” Parents reported that their children were spending more time watching educational TV than they were engaging with educational content on other platforms, such as mobile devices, computers, and video-game consoles. Parents also thought that their children were learning more from educational TV than from these other platforms, on subjects ranging from reading and vocabulary to science to social skills. Math is the only subject that parents believed their children actually learned more from on the computer than from educational TV. We also discovered that parents didn’t hold mobile devices in very high esteem when it came to their kids’ learning. Mobile devices ranked lower than TV, computer activities, and even video games in terms of parents’ perceived impact of educational media by platform.

 

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What findings surprised you?

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One of the survey’s most surprising—and interesting—findings is the extent to which children are applying what they learn from educational media to nonmedia activities. For example, 78% of parents reported that their children at least occasionally engaged in imaginative play based on something they had seen in such media. Additionally, we learned that 77% of children at least occasionally asked questions based on content in educational media, and 60% of children at least occasionally taught their parents something new that they had learned from educational media.

 

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Does educational-media use vary based on the age of the child?

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Yes. According to the survey data, within the 2- to 10-year-old age range, the younger children are more likely to consume educational-media content than the older children. As children grow older, they spend more time engaging with screen media, but the proportion of such content that is educational decreases. While we can’t tell from this survey why this is happening, we have our suspicions. Quite simply, there is less educational content available for school-age children than there is for younger children. Think of all the educational TV programs that air on PBS and other kid-targeted cable channels: most shows are for preschoolers, and only a handful target elementary school–age kids. The same is true in the burgeoning educational “app” market. In fact, the Cooney Center periodically conducts scans of the Apple iTunes and Android apps stores and has found a similar abundance of educational games and programs for preschoolers and a relative paucity of these materials for older children. Developers looking to fill a gap in the marketplace should consider creating apps that can help foster school-age children’s learning needs.

 

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How do children and their families engage with educational media together?

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We know from previous research that, when parents use media alongside their children, it enhances the educational value of the experience. In the survey, we found that, in a typical day, just over half of all children had spent some time using media with one of their parents, but that this joint engagement had varied based on the media platform. For instance, about half of all children had co-viewed TV with a parent, but fewer than 10% of children had used mobile devices, computers, or video games with their families. We also learned that younger children had spent more time using media with their parents than older children.

 

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How do parents select educational media for their children?

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Based on the survey data, it appears that parents are quite proactive in how they find and select educational media for their children. Half of parents said that they had come across educational media while browsing; 40% had gotten recommendations from teachers; and 35% had relied on friends or family members for such information. Meanwhile, 20% of parents reported that their kids had found educational-media titles on their own, and another 20% said that their kids had gotten recommendations from their friends.

 

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What do parents need in order to guide their children’s learning through educational media?

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More than half of the survey respondents said that they needed more guidance locating quality educational media to support their children’s learning. Lower-income, Hispanic-Latino, and less highly educated parents were even more likely than others to express this need.

 

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How can practitioners support families in selecting and using educational media?

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We know that teacher endorsements are one of the main ways that parents get recommendations for educational media. However, among parents of children who are in a preschool or school setting, just 40% say their children’s teachers “often” or “sometimes” assign, recommend, or suggest media for use at home. This means that there is a real opportunity for practitioners, teachers, and others who work with families and children to provide parents with more information about age-appropriate TV shows, games, apps, and websites that have true educational value. Practitioners can also tell parents about organizations like Common Sense Media and the Children’s Technology Review, which provide ratings for many media titles. And, importantly, practitioners can help remind parents that educational-media use should be a limited part of a wide range of activities that support children’s learning and development. Based on our survey results, this type of guidance has the potential to be especially helpful for low-income, Hispanic-Latino, and less highly educated parents.


As Director of Research for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, Lori Takeuchi, PhD, oversees research projects and partnerships. A learning scientist by training, she conducts research on how children use technology across the various settings of their lives. The FINE Newsletter last featured Lori in 2011, when she shared implications for practitioners and families from her report, Families Matter: Designing Media for a Digital Age.


This resource is part of the February FINE Newsletter. The FINE Newsletter shares the newest and best family engagement research and resources from Harvard Family Research Project and other field leaders. To access the archives of past issues, please visit www.hfrp.org/FINENewsletter.

 

© 2016 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
Published by Harvard Family Research Project