Is an Educational App Really Educational? What Parents Should Check

The word "educational" on an app does not mean much by itself. In 2015, a team of child-development researchers wrote that claims about educational content are completely unregulated, so any app developer can slap the "educational" label on their product. Their advice to parents is to ignore the label and look at how the app actually works, using five questions that take a minute to ask.

Who says an educational label cannot be trusted

Researchers from Temple University, Penn State, the University of Delaware, Sesame Workshop, the Fred Rogers Center and Swinburne University, who published their review in Psychological Science in the Public Interest in 2015. The Association for Psychological Science summarised it in a news release. The researchers also warned that many apps make dramatic promises, and that an app, even an educational one, is just an app and not a miracle. That is worth remembering the next time an advert promises your child will learn to read from a phone.

What should an educational app ask your child to do

Real mental work. The first thing the researchers say to look for is an app that requires real mental effort and depends on the child's active participation. An app where a child mostly swipes, taps and watches things happen is closer to a cartoon than a lesson. A quick test is to watch your child use it for two minutes and ask whether they are thinking or only reacting.

Does a good app keep your child focused on the task

It should. The second suggestion is to look for apps that support sustained engagement with the task at hand, which means the child stays on the activity itself and is not pulled away by noise, pop-ups and rewards that have nothing to do with learning. If your child keeps getting sent to something else inside the app, that app is not helping them concentrate.

How can an app connect to what your child already knows

By linking new information to something familiar. The researchers suggest looking for apps that help children make meaningful connections between new information and what they already know. A counting game that uses things from your child's day, such as chapatis, steps or toys, does this better than one that shows random numbers on a colourful screen. You can add to it yourself by asking, afterwards, where they have seen the same thing at home.

Why does it help if you use the app with your child

Because talking and playing together is part of learning. Two more pieces of the researchers' advice point this way: look for apps that encourage social interaction through discussion, competition or conversation, and for apps that use guided exploration to help your child discover new information. An app that sends your child off alone into a maze of screens ticks neither box. An app you can sit beside and talk about, taking turns, usually ticks both.

What should you do once an app passes the check

Treat it as one tool among many, and still set a time for it. A good app is better than a poor one, but it is still screen time, and it should not push out play, reading, talking or sleep. Decide when it can be used, how long, and what comes after, as you would for any other screen. If the phone is yours, you can leave the learning apps alone and keep the games and video apps closed during study or bedtime hours.

The label tells you what the maker wants you to believe. Two minutes of watching your child use the app tells you what it actually does.