Educational maths apps can offer the opportunity for personalised learning that can support young children’s maths development. This report by the Nuffield Foundation reveals that only one of the top 25 apps, ranked by popularity in the iOS Apple App and Google Play Stores, had been formally evaluated to see whether they had any impact on children’s maths learning.
As part of the study, the researchers synthesised 50 research studies from 18 countries around the world which evaluated 77 educational maths apps during the first three years of school. They found that 90 per cent of studies showed that maths apps had some benefits for supporting young children’s mathematical learning and development.
In particular, learning with maths apps was maximised when the apps provided a personalised learning journey for children and gave them feedback explaining why their answers were right or wrong, as well as giving them praise and rewards. However, few of the top 25 maths apps included features that could do this.
The researchers argue that their findings demonstrate a lack of high-quality maths apps currently available for parents and teachers and highlight the need to improve the meaningful categorisation of educational apps on the app stores to facilitate parent and teacher choice.
Of the top 25 apps in the study that did include maths content, 68% focused on number skills and 64% on counting – yet these skills were often introduced in isolation from other maths skills and experiences. Other skills important for children’s mathematical development, such as basic arithmetic and shape, patterns, and measurement, were less frequently found.