Children’s Learning Through Touchscreen Games: The Role of Background Music and Touchscreen Experience

Touchscreen devices have become commonplace in children’s lives, and a popular activity among young children is the playing of educational games on touchscreen devices. In these games, background music is used by most game developers as an essential element in increasing player’s engagement and interest. The limited research on the effects of background music in educational touchscreen games on young children’s learning has yielded mixed results. In addition, past studies have found that touchscreen experience has an impact on children’s fine motor skills, which are needed for most touchscreen games. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore whether background music and children’s touchscreen experience would influence the effect of playing a touchscreen time telling game on children’s learning to tell time. Seventy two children aged 5–6 years were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions created by crossing two factors - background music while playing the game (Yes or No) and prior touchscreen experience (Yes or No). The results showed that background music promoted learning to tell time among children without touchscreen experience, but had no effect on those who had prior experience. Participants in all conditions were able to transfer the content of touchscreen learning (iPad) to other media (paper clock). The findings have implications for educational game developers, parents, and educators.