Published today on UCL Discovery, the report throws into light the lack of governance and regulation for ‘educational’ apps. It 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. The study was funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
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.
