Roles and research trends of touchscreen mobile devices in early childhood education: review of journal publications from 2010 to 2019 based on the technology-enhanced learning model

Abstract

ABSTRACT The use of touchscreen mobile devices in early childhood education has gained considerable attention. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the impacts of touchscreen mobile devices on children's cognitive and affective development. Researchers have further indicated the need to probe in which contexts children can learn effectively with touchscreen mobile devices. Therefore, this paper reviewed the studies related to the use of touchscreen mobile devices for children published in the Web of Science database from 2010 to 2019. A total of 45 studies were selected and analyzed based on the technology-based learning model. Accordingly, several dimensions, such as application domain, research method and research issues, and the attitudes of teachers, parents and young children, were taken into account. The results showed that (1) 35% studies applied touchscreen mobile devices for young children's language skills development; (2) the quantitative research method is the most commonly adopted; (3) children's cognitive development received the most attention among all the research issues; and (4) young children generally like to use touchscreen mobile devices to learn. Moreover, teachers' and parents' concerns about young children's use of touchscreen mobile devices are analyzed, and future trends in integrating ICT in early childhood education are discussed.