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What Schemes Do Preschoolers Develop When Using Multi-touch Applications to Foster Number Sense (and Why)?

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Contemporary Research and Perspectives on Early Childhood Mathematics Education

Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

As part of an educational project proposed in Italian pre-schools, an educator followed a protocol that had been used in a previous study (Baccaglini-Frank and Maracci in Digit Exp Math Educ 1:7–27, 2015) proposing two chosen iPad apps to children of ages five to six. This study investigates the schemes developed by the children in response to the apps, and the role the educator’s interventions seemed to play in such development. Analyses of the data collected suggest that her interventions privileged and encouraged schemes involving counting, which limited the variety of schemes enacted and the aspects of number sense strengthened through the protocol.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There is also another mode, called ‘tap mode’, in which success is reached when the user taps the screen (sequentially) as many times as the numerosity of the dots on the ladybug’s back. This mode seems to mostly encourage students to use counting strategies, and to support only to a limited extent children’s development of number abilities. This is why we chose not to use it.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Pisa, Largo Bruno Pontecorvo, 5, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Anna Baccaglini-Frank

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  1. Anna Baccaglini-Frank
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Correspondence to Anna Baccaglini-Frank .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

    Iliada Elia

  2. Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Joanne Mulligan

  3. Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Ann Anderson

  4. Department of Mathematics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Anna Baccaglini-Frank

  5. Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Education Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Christiane Benz

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Baccaglini-Frank, A. (2018). What Schemes Do Preschoolers Develop When Using Multi-touch Applications to Foster Number Sense (and Why)?. In: Elia, I., Mulligan, J., Anderson, A., Baccaglini-Frank, A., Benz, C. (eds) Contemporary Research and Perspectives on Early Childhood Mathematics Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73432-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73432-3_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73431-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73432-3

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