Measures Matter - Educational Apps Meta-Analysis on Literacy and Math Skills

Oct 15, 2026

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Meta-analysis evaluates how educational apps affect preschool to Grade 3 children’s literacy and mathematics. Findings synthesize 36 intervention studies and 285 effect sizes, estimating overall impact and testing moderating influences using random-effects meta-regression with robust variance estimation. Rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental work shows a mean weighted effect size of +0.31 SD across overall achievement, with comparable gains in math and literacy. Positive effects also vary substantially: larger impacts appear for preschool-focused studies, researcher-developed outcomes, and measures of constrained skills.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction and Background

Educational apps and growing availability

Limitations of prior effectiveness research

Study Focus and Approach

Intervention type and review scope

Defining "Educational Apps"

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–19 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211004183 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Measures Matter: A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Educational Apps on Preschool to Grade 3 Children’s Literacy and Math Skills James Kim Harvard University Graduate School of Education Joshua Gilbert Harvard University Graduate School of Education New England Conservatory Qun Yu Boston College Charles Gale Harvard University Graduate School of Education Thousands of educational apps are available to students, teachers, and parents, yet research on their effectiveness is limited. This meta-analysis synthesized findings from 36 intervention studies and 285 effect sizes evaluating the effectiveness of educational apps for preschool to Grade 3 children and the moderating role of methodological, participant, and intervention characteristics. Using random effects meta-regression with robust variance estimation, we summarized the overall impact of educational apps and examined potential moderator effects. First, results from rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental studies yielded a mean weighted effect size of +0.31 standard deviations on overall achievement and comparable effects in both math and literacy. Second, the positive overall effect masks substantial variability in app effectiveness, as meta-regression analyses revealed three significant moderators of treatment effects. Treatment effects were larger for studies involving preschool rather than K–3 students, for studies using researcher-developed rather than standardized outcomes, and for studies measuring constrained rather than unconstrained skills. Keywords: educational apps, meta-analysis, literacy, math, academic achievement, constrained and unconstrained skills, preschool, early elementary Digital educational applications (“apps”) are an increasingly appealing tool for promoting young children’s school readiness and basic literacy and math skills. In particular, apps that run on touchscreen tablets and smartphones are now a ubiquitous feature of children’s homes and schools. For example, a recent study on app usage in schools noted that there are over 2,500 education apps available to school leaders (S. Baker & Gowda, 2018), and the market for educational software is estimated in the billions of dollars in the United States (Richards & Stebbins, 2014) . Similarly, parents are now confronted with an ever-increasing number of apps to improve children’s academic achievement; the number of educational and reference apps in Apple’s App Store has increased from 80,000 in 2015 to 200,000 in 2018 (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015; Pendlebury, 2018) . More recently, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has ignited efforts by research and policy organizations to offer free and easy-touse educational apps as a scalable strategy for helping young children acquire and maintain basic literacy and mathematics skills (U.S. Department of Education, 2020) . Despite the proliferation of educational apps designed for young children from preschool to Grade 3, effectiveness research on the causal impact of educational apps is in its infancy. Reviewing research on school-based educational apps, Haßler et al. (2016) concluded that “the fragmented nature of the current knowledge base, and the scarcity of rigorous studies, makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions”(p. 139) . More specifically, because children use apps in Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work

FAQs

What does the meta-analysis evaluate about educational apps?

It quantifies mean effects of educational apps on preschool to Grade 3 children’s literacy and mathematics skills and identifies factors that may strengthen or weaken effectiveness.

How were the overall effects and moderators estimated?

The analysis used random-effects meta-regression with robust variance estimation to summarize overall impact and examine moderator effects.

What overall effect did rigorous studies find?

Rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental studies yielded a mean weighted effect size of +0.31 standard deviations on overall achievement, with comparable effects in math and literacy.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Adam