Siddiqui, Zahra;
(2024)
Investigating Mathematical Development using an Educational Math App: The Importance of Theory and Developmental Pathways.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Young children aged (3-7 years old) develop various domain-specific mathematical abilities, including symbolic number comparison, non-symbolic dot comparison, and arithmetic. Further research is needed to understand the developmental pathways between these abilities, and how they interact across this age range. Touchscreen educational maths apps can provide engaging content to children, and also serve as a large data source which can be used to investigate domain-specific developmental pathways. This thesis demonstrates the novel use of back-end log data from the educational maths app, Funexpected, to investigate children's mathematical development. Chapter 3 reviewed developmental pathways via existing intervention literature. Chapters 4 and 5 investigated how dosage (amount of gameplay) impacted performance in non-symbolic (Chapter 4) and symbolic comparison (Chapter 5) abilities across children aged 3 to 7 years old. Chapter 6 then compared dosage responses for children who played both games, exploring potential differences between these abilities. Finally, Chapter 7 analysed app data to investigate pathways between comparison abilities and their influence on counting and arithmetic skills. Results demonstrate that developmental pathways between different domain-specific abilities can be identified from the existing literature (Chapter 3) and further, the log data studies (Chapters 4 to 7) identified specific characteristics of how these developmental pathways are implemented within the educational maths app. The thesis findings highlight the importance of appropriate dosage to see improvements In domain-specific abilities such as non-symbolic magnitude comparison and symbolic number comparison. The order of games played in the app is also important, as results suggest children should spend These results hold direct implications for the industry partner. They pinpoint areas where the app effectively enhances domain-specific abilities and areas for improvement, such as encouraging higher dosage levels. Furthermore, the findings contribute theoretically to our understanding of developmental pathways in domain-specific skills.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Investigating Mathematical Development using an Educational Math App: The Importance of Theory and Developmental Pathways |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197089 |
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