Splash and Bubbles for Parents App: Field Study Report

The Splash and Bubbles for Parents app is a second-screen digital resource for parents and caregivers to support young children’s learning of ocean science. This report, prepared for The Jim Henson Company, shares findings of a field study conducted to examine the promise of the app in supporting parents’ and caregivers’ behaviors and attitudes toward science and technology; families’ joint engagement with media (adults and children watch and play together); and children’s science learning. Findings indicate that parents and caregivers found the app helpful for supporting their children’s science learning. Parents and caregivers in the intervention group (who watched the show and used the app) initiated more conversations before and after viewing episodes, relative to parents and caregivers in the comparison group (who watched the show but did not have access to the app). Furthermore, parents and caregivers in the intervention group facilitated more science conversations, relative to parents and caregivers in the comparison group. It is important to note that families who used the app’s features more extensively seem to have better internalized the purpose of the app and spent more time exploring and using its components. Families who explored the app often and more deeply also reported stronger self-reported changes in joint media engagement and science. Many families, however, would benefit from support navigating the app given it represents a new kind of tool. Finally, while differences in children’s understanding of the science concepts in the show were not detected between groups, the proportion of science related conversations initiated by children before and after episode viewing was higher for children in the intervention group.