Inequalities in income affect how well children do in maths — but not reading, the most comprehensive study of its kind has found. Looking at data stretching from 1992 to 2019, the analysis, published in the journal Educational Review, revealed that 10-year-olds in US states with bigger gaps in income did less well in maths…

Online learning engagement can be increased by nearly one-third by simply prompting students to share course ideas rather than personal details in the form of icebreakers and social introductions. Online learning engagement can be increased by nearly one-third by simply prompting students to share course ideas in a discussion forum rather than having them share…

Though writing by hand is increasingly being eclipsed by the ease of computers, a new study finds we shouldn’t be so quick to throw away the pencils and paper: handwriting helps people learn certain skills surprisingly faster and significantly better than learning the same material through typing or watching videos. «The question out there for…

Log on to any app store, and parents will find hundreds of options for children that claim to be educational. But new research suggests these apps might not be as beneficial to children as they seem. A new study analyzed some of the most downloaded educational apps for kids using a set of four criteria…

A new longitudinal study conducted in Norway looked at how playing video games affects the social skills of 6- to 12-year-olds. It found that playing the games affected youth differently by age and gender, but that generally speaking, gaming was not associated with social development. The findings come from researchers at the Norwegian University of…

A new video game framework brings together two well-studied approaches to educational software in order to keep multiple players engrossed in the learning experience while fostering collaboration and problem solving. The framework is one of the first to integrate narrative-centered learning and collaborative learning techniques, laying the groundwork for future efforts in the field. In…

A new study has shown that an interactive avatar, which gives both instructions and feedback on the attention of the learner, can improve the performance of ADHD children on a complex problem-solving task. The article entitled «Interactive Avatar Boosts the Performances of Children with ADHD in Dynamic Measures of Intelligence» was coauthored by Rosa Fabio,…

Students who used immersive virtual reality (VR) did not learn significantly better than those who used two more traditional forms of learning, but they vastly preferred the VR to computer-simulated and hands-on methods, a new study has found. «We didn’t know exactly what we were going to see,» said Jack Madden, doctoral student in astronomy…

Eighty-six percent of parents agree that teens spend too much time gaming, but many may be mistaken about the extent of their own child’s video game habits, a new national poll suggests. Parents also report very different gaming patterns for teen boys than girls, according to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s…

What if video games, instead of being an obstacle to literacy, could actually help children improve their reading abilities? Scientists have tested an action video game for children, aimed to enhance reading skills. The results demonstrate improved reading abilities after just twelve hours of training. Notably, these gains persist over time, to the point that…