Fostering Joint Parent/Child Engagement in Preschool Computational Thinking by Leveraging Digital Media, Mobile Technology, and Library Settings in Rural Communities

This project will teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts to preschoolers by creating a mobile app to guide families through sequenced sets of videos and hands-on activities, building on the popular PBS KIDS series Work It Out Wombats!  To support families at home it will also develop a new library engagement model to build librarians' computational thinking content knowledge and self-efficacy so they can support parents' efforts with their children. Computational thinking is an increasingly critical skill for learning and success in the workforce. It includes the ability to identify problems, brainstorm and generate solutions and processes that can be communicated and followed by computers or humans. There are few projects that introduce computational thinking to young children. Very little research has been done on the ways that parents can facilitate children's engagement in CT skills. By developing a model that trains and supports librarians to become coaches of parents as they engage with their children in CT, we will leverage and build the expertise of librarians. The project's target audience includes parents and children living in rural areas where access to CT learning may be very limited. Project partners include the EDC, a major research organization, the American Library Association, and the Association of Rural and Small Libraries.

EDC will conduct a formative research study that asks: 1) What supports do parents of preschoolers in rural communities need in order to effectively engage in CT with their children at home?; 2) How can libraries in rural communities support joint CT exploration in family homes? and 3) How can an intervention that combines media resources, mobile technology, and library supports foster sustained joint parent/child engagement and positive attitudes around CT? Researchers will develop a parent survey, adapting several scales from previously developed instruments that ask parents to report on children's use of CT-related vocabulary and CT-related attitudes and dispositions. Survey scales will assess librarians' attitudes towards CT, as well as their self-efficacy in supporting parents in CT. During the formative study, EDC will pilot-test survey scales with 30 parents and 6 librarians in rural MS and KY. Analyses will be primarily qualitative and will be geared toward producing rapid feedback for the development team. Quantitative analyses will be used on parent app use, using both time query and back-end data, exploring factors associated with time spent using apps.

EDC will also conduct an impact study to evaluate how the new media resources and mobile technology, in combination with the library engagement model, support families' joint engagement with CT, and positive attitudes around CT. The researchers will recruit 125 low-income families with 4- to 5-year-old children in rural MS and KY to participate in the study. They will randomly assign families within each library to the full intervention condition, including the app and library support delivered through the library engagement model, or the app-only condition. This design will allow researchers to compare the impact across conditions, and understand more fully the potential additional benefit of library support for rural families' sustained engagement in CT exploration.
 

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