EVALUATION OF EDUCATIONAL MOBILE APPS FOR TURKISH PRESCHOOLERS FROM GOOGLE PLAY STORE
Abstract
There are many mobile applications (apps) for learning in Google Play Store. People usually evaluate the apps based on their personal view/criteria, and others have an idea about that app with its rating score and/or user comments. This study, aims to analyze the educational mobile apps objectively by using a reliable rubric tool; REVEAC (Rubric for the EValuation of Educational Apps for preschool Children). This is a descriptive research based on content analysis method. The mobile apps were selected in this study based on their following characteristics: belonging to educational category for children five years old and under; being free, trial or freemium; and having Turkish content. Android apps were selected because of its commonly usage in worldwide. The selected 44 apps have scores from 2.9 to 5 according to Google’s five-star rating system. The selected mobile apps had medium level of rubric scores. The rubric scores ranged from 29 to 66 points with a mean of 43.20 ± 7.89. There was no statistically significant correlation between rubric scores and a) Google Play scores; b) the number of people who voted for the mobile app, and c) how many times the mobile app downloaded. The 39 apps could be categorized as games, and five apps were interactive e-books. The most popular five contents of the apps were; animals, numbers, colors, fruits and vegetables, and shapes. Almost all of the apps were promoting learning through repetitive practices. The study also presented additional notes for the apps in terms of four domain; educational content, design, functionality, and technical characteristics.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v0i0.1541
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