Abstract:

Mobile devices have now become omnipresent in our everyday lives with almost all households being equipped with at least one mobile phone or tablet. Hence, it is no wonder that their educational potential has been increasingly explored by app developers already targeting at very young users. Nevertheless, although educational apps for preschoolers are booming on app stores, they are still largely unregulated and untested. As a consequence, many of these apps focus more on being fun rather than educational aspects, as they lack scientific foundations on how to acquire cognitive key competences. In this context, developing a theory-driven, evidence-based application for fostering numerical skills in preschool age is particularly interesting for at least two reasons: first, the ability to reason with numbers is critical for individual life prospects; and second, the use of touch devices may allow children to playfully grasp basic numerical concepts such as cardinal magnitude by applying their most widely used tools for handling numerical demands: their fingers. Accordingly, we developed a game-like app to train finger-based numerical strategies on touch-sensitive tablets. Conception and development of the app were based on a theoretical model of finger-based influences on numerical development as well as on principles drawn from game-based learning. Moreover, relevant game elements such as narrative, virtual incentives, progression systems, as well as visually appealing graphics were implemented to increase children’s game experience. In particular, our game is centered on the story of a little alien who ends up stranded on earth and needs to collect stars to fuel his spaceship and fly back home. However, as he has no fingers, he needs children’s help to “grab” the stars by placing their fingers on the screen either sequentially for training finger counting strategies or simultaneously for fostering cardinality knowledge or performing number decompositions.

As such, the app offers learning games for training basic numerical competences on three different levels:
i) counting,
ii) cardinality knowledge, and
iii) initial calculation.

First user experience data from a version of the children’s Game Experience Questionnaire (KidsGEQ) adapted for preschoolers indicated that children liked the playful interaction with the numerical learning content. Taken together, our game-like app took the first step to support preschool children’s learning of basic numerical competences, representing a successful case of game development based on scientific evidence. This way, educational apps become capable of promoting both meaningful, effective learning and an enjoyable game experience.

Keywords:

Numerical development, game experience, game-based learning, finger counting.