YOUNG CHILDREN’S USE AND PARENT-CHILD CO-USE OF TABLETS: INVESTIGATING MOBILE MEDIA’S EFFECTS ON CHILDREN’S EXECUTIVE FUNCTION

不可否认，幼儿日常使用数字移动媒体正变得越来越普遍。据报道，8岁及以下儿童每天花在移动设备上的时间在2010至2012年间增加了两倍(常识媒体，2013年)。儿童似乎对移动设备的浓厚兴趣和越来越多的使用引发了公众对移动媒体对儿童发展的潜在影响、好处和后果的浓厚兴趣。许多组织、项目管理人员、家长和教师都在通过研究来寻找答案。不幸的是，在这一领域缺乏直接证据，特别是与家庭贫困儿童有关的证据。有关移动媒体使用与执行功能等社会情感结果之间关系的实验研究尚不存在。 利用实验研究设计，这项为期12周的随机对照试验(RCT)将调查Head Start学龄前儿童使用平板电脑、亲子共同使用平板电脑与儿童执行功能之间的关系。72名HS学龄前儿童(3岁及以上)和他们的父母将从中西部的3个HS项目中招募参与这项研究。这项研究的主要目的是确定在平板电脑上独立并有目的地使用教育应用程序的HS儿童是否比独立使用自己选择的应用程序的儿童表现出更强的执行功能，以及与父母共同使用教育应用程序的儿童是否比单独使用相同教育应用程序的儿童表现出更强的执行功能。其他探索性分析将考察儿童的执行功能、使用平板电脑的时间、使用的内容类型以及父母与孩子共同使用平板电脑之间的关系。这项研究还将引入新的、创新的、更准确的方法来衡量儿童和父母使用移动媒体的时间，从而使研究的分析结果具有更强的有效性。 这项研究将为HS计划和父母提供基于研究的信息，以增加父母对家庭移动媒体使用可能如何影响他们孩子的发展的了解。HS项目管理员在考虑如何在他们的项目和实践中使用移动媒体时，也将获得必要的经验证据，特别是在与家长合作时。此外，新方法的引入将改善研究人员在移动设备上花费的时间的方法实践，加强未来研究的有效性。最后，这项研究的结果将有助于推进在儿童发展和移动媒体的交叉点上发现的新生研究。

Young children's daily use of digital mobile media is becoming undeniably prevalent. It was reported that the daily amount of time children 8-years-old and under spent on mobile devices tripled between 2010 and 2012 (Common Sense Media, 2013). Children's seemingly intense interest in mobile devices and increased usage has prompted substantial public interest in mobile media's potential effects, benefits and consequences to children's development. Many organizations, program administrators, parents, and teachers are turning to research for answers. Unfortunately there is a paucity of direct evidence in this area, especially pertaining to young children from families who are managing poverty. Experimental studies examining the relationship between mobile media use and social-emotional outcomes such as executive function are non-existent. Utilizing an experimental research design, this 12-week randomized control trial (RCT) will investigate the relationships among Head Start (HS) preschool children's use of tablets, parent-child co-use of tablets and the children's executive function. Seventy-two (72) HS preschool children (ages 3 and up) and their parents will be recruited from 3 HS programs in the Midwest to participate in this study. The primary aim of the research is to ascertain whether HS children who independently and purposefully use educational apps on tablets demonstrate greater executive function than children who independently use apps of their choice, and whether children who co-use educational apps with their parents demonstrate greater executive function than children who use the same educational apps independently. Additional exploratory analyses will examine the relationships among children's executive function, the amount of time spent using a tablet, types of content being used, and parents' co-use of tablets with their children. This study also will introduce new, innovative, and more accurate methods of measuring the amount of time children and parents use mobile media, resulting in stronger validity of the study's analytical findings. This study will provide research-based information to HS programs and parents, to increase parents' understanding of how mobile media use at home may impact their child's development. HS program administrators will also be provided with needed empirical evidence as they consider how to use mobile media in their programs and practices, especially when working with parents. Also, the introduction of new methods of measuring time spent on mobile devices will improve the methodology practices used by researchers, strengthening the validity of future studies. And finally, the study's results will help to advance the nascent research found at the intersection of child development and mobile media.