Dear colleagues
In collaboration with Frontiers in Psychology, we are organizing a Research Topic entitled Touch screen tablets touching children’s lives. We are emailing today to encourage you to contribute to this Research Topic. We encourage authors to submit basic research from any theoretical perspective. We invite original research articles, reviews, hypothesis and theory articles, methodological articles and brief commentaries or opinion pieces.
Host Specialty: Frontiers in Developmental Psychology
Research Topic Title: Touch screen tablets touching children’s lives
Description:
Touch screen tablets have greatly expanded the technology accessible to preschoolers, toddlers and even infants, given that they do not require the fine motor skills required for using traditional computers.
Many parents and educators wish to make evidence-based decisions regarding young children’s technology use, yet technological advancements continue to occur faster than researchers can keep up with. Accordingly, despite touch screen tablets entering society more than 5 years ago, we are in the infancy of research concerning interactive media and children.
The topic has gained traction in the past couple of years. For example theoretical papers have discussed how interactive media activities differ from physical toys and passive media (Christakis, 2014), and how educational apps development should utilise the four “pillars” of learning (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). Yet there has been little experimental research published on young children and touch screen use.
We plan to use this Research Topic to move forward our understanding of how young children interact with touch screen technology, the impact that it has on them, mediators of these effects, and individual differences. By doing so we aim to collate a body of much-sought research that can increase academics’, industries’, educators’ and parents’ understanding of the impact that touch screen technology has on young children’s lives. We especially welcome submissions focused on children from birth through middle childhood.
Questions that might be addressed include:
– How are touch screen technologies best used in early childhood classrooms?
– How do parents interact with their children when they are using touch screens?
– How do young children understand and control different interactive features of touch screens (e.g., swipe, pinch, shake)?
– How does haptic feedback influence participation and learning?
– How does learning from touch screens compare to learning from other media?
– Are there sub-populations of children for whom touch screens offer a particular advantage?
The research topic may include but is not limited to:
– Descriptive studies reporting how and when young children use interactive media including at home and in classrooms.
– Replication studies using touch screens in cases where studies with traditional media are being used to support claims about interactive media.
– Comparison studies directly comparing learning from a traditional (physical) tasks and an analogous app.
– Transfer and learning studies in which children learn and apply knowledge learnt in one modality (e.g., touch screens) to another (e.g., the physical world).
The submission of research articles, reviews, hypothesis and theory articles, methodological articles, and brief commentaries or opinion pieces are welcomed.
We also encourage both interdisciplinary collaboration between developmental, education, and human-media interaction researchers and partnership between industry and academia.
Important Note: All submissions/contributions to this Research Topic must be in line with the scope of the journal and section they are submitted to. While authors are encouraged to draw from other disciplines to enrich their papers where relevant, they must ensure papers fall within the section, as expressed in its Scope.
Many parents and educators wish to make evidence-based decisions regarding young children’s technology use, yet technological advancements continue to occur faster than researchers can keep up with. Accordingly, despite touch screen tablets entering society more than 5 years ago, we are in the infancy of research concerning interactive media and children.
The topic has gained traction in the past couple of years. For example theoretical papers have discussed how interactive media activities differ from physical toys and passive media (Christakis, 2014), and how educational apps development should utilise the four “pillars” of learning (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). Yet there has been little experimental research published on young children and touch screen use.
We plan to use this Research Topic to move forward our understanding of how young children interact with touch screen technology, the impact that it has on them, mediators of these effects, and individual differences. By doing so we aim to collate a body of much-sought research that can increase academics’, industries’, educators’ and parents’ understanding of the impact that touch screen technology has on young children’s lives. We especially welcome submissions focused on children from birth through middle childhood.
Questions that might be addressed include:
– How are touch screen technologies best used in early childhood classrooms?
– How do parents interact with their children when they are using touch screens?
– How do young children understand and control different interactive features of touch screens (e.g., swipe, pinch, shake)?
– How does haptic feedback influence participation and learning?
– How does learning from touch screens compare to learning from other media?
– Are there sub-populations of children for whom touch screens offer a particular advantage?
The research topic may include but is not limited to:
– Descriptive studies reporting how and when young children use interactive media including at home and in classrooms.
– Replication studies using touch screens in cases where studies with traditional media are being used to support claims about interactive media.
– Comparison studies directly comparing learning from a traditional (physical) tasks and an analogous app.
– Transfer and learning studies in which children learn and apply knowledge learnt in one modality (e.g., touch screens) to another (e.g., the physical world).
The submission of research articles, reviews, hypothesis and theory articles, methodological articles, and brief commentaries or opinion pieces are welcomed.
We also encourage both interdisciplinary collaboration between developmental, education, and human-media interaction researchers and partnership between industry and academia.
Important Note: All submissions/contributions to this Research Topic must be in line with the scope of the journal and section they are submitted to. While authors are encouraged to draw from other disciplines to enrich their papers where relevant, they must ensure papers fall within the section, as expressed in its Scope.
Research Topic Homepage: http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/4289/touch-screen-tablets-touching-childrens-lives
Abstract Deadline: December 1, 2015
Manuscript Submission Deadline: May 16, 2016
Should you choose to participate, please confirm by sending a quick email (JTarasuik@swin.edu.au or Gabrielle.Strouse@usd.edu) and then your abstract no later than December 1, 2015 using the following link: http://www.frontiersin.org/submissioninfo.
The goal is to create a comprehensive collection of papers to serve as an interdisciplinary forum for discussion and debate. Contributions can be articles describing original research, methods, hypothesis & theory, opinions, etc. Frontiers will also compile an e-book, as soon as all contributing articles are published, that can be used in classes, be sent to foundations that fund your research, to journalists and press agencies, or to any number of other organizations.
All Frontiers articles undergo a rigorous and interactive peer-review process. Average time from submission to final decision is 85 days. Frontiers is a Swiss Gold-model open-access publisher. Open access journals are growing in popularity with researchers around the world because they make publications accessible to all scholars, regardless of affiliation. As an author in Frontiers, you retain the copyright to your own papers and figures. Once published, your articles will remain free to access for all readers, and will be indexed in PubMed and other academic archives. Manuscript accepted for publication do incur a publishing fee, which varies depending on the article type. Research Topic manuscripts receive a significant discount on publishing fees (25% discount off category A). Please visit the Frontiers website (http://www.frontiersin.org/about) for more information about open access, peer review, and impact. Fees and article types are listed in the “For Authors” menu under the Developmental Psychology journal page (http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/all/section/developmental-psychology).
We would be delighted if you considered participating in this Research Topic.
Sincerely,
Joanne Tarasuik, Gabrielle Strouse and Jordy Kaufman
Digital Media Project 