One Stone, Three Birds? Effects of Joint Play of Digital Versus Non-digital Number Board Games on Young Children, Parents and Their Relationship
Funding Scheme
General Research Fund (RGC)
Funding Amount
HK$1,039,200
Awarded Year
2023
Can children and parents playing digital maths games together improve child numeracy?
This project adopts an experimental design to compare the benefits of parent-child joint play of traditional and digital number board games on Hong Kong kindergarten children and their parents, as well as its benefits for their relationship. It examines how parent-child joint play of number board games, parents’ competence in numeracy guidance, the parent-child relationship, and children’s numeracy learning are related over time.
Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. The research team contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Joint play of number board games by parents and children promotes numeracy competence and interest in young children. However, we do not yet know whether these benefits are retained when the games are played in a virtual format. Nor have most previous studies examined parents’ competence in numeracy guidance and any subsequent changes in the relationship between them and their children due to these parent-child joint numeracy activities. This study addresses these research gaps.
This project helps us to understand whether it is essential for young children to physically manipulate concrete objects to learn numeracy. This deserves revisiting because children are now more accustomed to interacting with screens, and because digital games can help children acquire numeracy concepts and skills by facilitating information processing. This is one of the pioneering studies in this field examining the effects of parent-child joint play of number board games from the family systems perspective. It explores the potential benefits for both children and parents, as well as for the overall quality of their relationship.
This project benefits parents, early childhood educators, and policymakers by informing them of the effects of parent-child joint play of traditional and digital number board games on children, their parents, and the parent-child relationship. It reveals how effectively or otherwise digital board games may help children learn numeracy concepts and skills compared to traditional board games, as well as how they may encourage parents to spend more quality time with young children.
