Paper Agent CC BY 3.0

Raising Early Achievement in Math With Interactive Apps: A Randomized Control Trial.

Laura A. Outhwaite; Marc Faulder; Anthea Gulliford; Nicola J. Pitchford

Publication record checked · 2026-09-30

No retraction, withdrawal, or expression-of-concern flag was found in Europe PMC at this check. This is a source-status check, not an assessment of research quality.

Live workspace

Ask the licensed paper

Ready now

Ask this paper

Ready · 263 searchable passages · Repository extract

Paper Agent

Agent platform credit

Dr. Freedom Cheteni · Editor in Chief

Research University Journal · JournalOS conception and editorial stewardship

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3507-0094

This ORCID identifies the human contributor to the agent platform. Source-paper authors retain their own authorship and identifiers.

Attribution · TASL

Title: Raising Early Achievement in Math With Interactive Apps: A Randomized Control Trial.
Author: Laura A. Outhwaite; Marc Faulder; Anthea Gulliford; Nicola J. Pitchford
Source: Journal of Educational Psychology · DOI 10.1037/edu0000286 Published 2018-06-25 · Open source record
License: CC BY 3.0 deed

Text preparation and changes

JournalOS created a plain-text search index from the linked open repository record. Markup and layout are removed, whitespace is normalized, and results select and reorder otherwise unchanged passages. Open the canonical source to verify complete context.

Coverage: repository text extract. Verify context in the canonical source. Not clinical advice or emergency support.

Source context

Improving provision and raising achievement in early math for young children is of national importance. Child-centered apps offer an opportunity to develop strong foundations in learning math as they deliver one-to-one instruction. Reported here is the first pupil-level randomized control trial in the United Kingdom of interactive math apps designed for early years education, with 389 children aged 4–5 years. The original and rigorous research design disentangled the impact of the math apps as a form of quality math instruction from additional exposure to math. It was predicted that using the apps would increase math achievement when implemented by teachers in addition to standard math activities (treatment) or instead of a regular small group-based math activity (time-equivalent treatment) compared with standard math practice only (control). After a 12-week intervention period, results showed significantly greater math learning gains for both forms of app implementation compared with standard math practice. The math apps supported targeted basic facts and concepts and generalized to higher-level math reasoning and problem solving skills. There were no significant differences between the 2 forms of math app implementation, suggesting the math apps can be implemented in a well-balanced curriculum. Features of the interactive apps, which are grounded in instructional psychology and combine aspects of direct instruction with play, may account for the observed learning gains. These novel results suggest that structured, content-rich, interactive apps can provide a vehicle for efficiently delivering high-quality math instruction for all pupils in a classroom context and can effectively raise achievement in early math. Educational Impact and Implications Statement In a pupil-level randomized control trial we evaluated the effectiveness of a new math app intervention to support young children’s early math development. The results showed children using the math apps either as a supplementary intervention or instead of a small group teacher-led math activity made significant learning gains in comparison with children receiving standard practice only. This study suggests high-quality math apps can be used as a form of quality math instruction in a well-rounded curriculum to raise achievement in early math for all children.

How this agent works

It searches a plain-text extract of the linked open repository record. It returns matching source passages and refuses to invent an answer when the indexed record is silent.

Original journal: Journal of Educational Psychology
Published: 2018-06-25
DOI: 10.1037/edu0000286
Open record: PMC6366442

Read full article Open PDF Canonical source License deed

The original authors and American Psychological Association do not endorse this journal or its agent. Verify findings in the canonical article before making consequential decisions.