Research Shows Early Math Improvement with Home Use of PBS KIDS' Series PEG + CAT

NEW YORK, NY, and MENLO PARK, CA | Researchers at EDC and SRI International have found that children who used media content from PBS KIDS’ series PEG + CAT showed improvement in critical math areas involving ordinal numbers, spatial relationships, and 3-D shapes. Parents and caregivers also showed greater comfort and confidence in supporting their children with math concepts and problem-solving strategies.

The randomized Ready To Learn study was based on a sample of 197 children ages 4 to 5 years old, primarily from low-income families, in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area. The study examined how digital media contributes to learning in the home, looking specifically at children’s engagement with PEG + CAT, a multimedia animated PBS KIDS series produced by The Fred Rogers Company.

Over 12 weeks, EDC and SRI examined children’s and families’ home use of selected PEG + CAT resources, which features characters and storylines extended across multiple media platforms. Study materials included full episodes of PEG + CAT, video clips, online games, a tablet-based app, and print activities, all of which allowed children and families to engage with the same characters, settings, and narratives on multiple devices.

Researchers found that children who were assigned to the PEG + CAT group and engaged with PEG + CAT videos and games showed stronger improvement in key math skills than children who were assigned to a comparison group. Parents and caregivers in the PEG +CAT group felt more confident that they could help their children learn math, and they agreed that technology and media were effective tools for math learning.

The study highlights the importance of making quality resources such as PEG + CAT available to both children and adults, especially those in low-income households. Parents and caregivers in the intervention group reported interacting more with their children around viewing PEG + CAT, playing digital games from the series and using screens, than did the control group parents, who did not use the PEG + CAT materials.

Key findings of the 2015 Ready To Learn study follow:

• Children who used PEG +CAT media showed stronger improvement in critical math areas involving ordinal numbers, spatial relationships, and 3-D shapes than children in a control group.
• Parents and caregivers in the PEG + CAT group felt more confident that they could help their children learn math and they agreed that technology and media were tools for math learning than did parents and caregivers in the control group.
• At the close of the study, a higher proportion of parents and caregivers in the PEG + CAT group reported engaging in problem-solving strategies with their children than did those in the control group.
• Families reported that they found PEG + CAT resources to be fun and engaging, providing children with opportunities to practice math skills. They said the games and videos complemented each other, making the content more meaningful.
• Parents and caregivers in the PEG + CAT group reported a higher frequency of joint parent-child technology use, more joint game play, and more conversation connecting digital media and daily life than did the control group of parents and caregivers.

“In our 10 years of studying public media in the Ready to Learn initiative, we have seen a pattern that these resources can indeed help with school readiness,” said EDC’s Shelley Pasnik, vice president and director of the Center for Children and Technology. “Introducing young children to key mathematical skills and providing positive models of social and emotional behaviors as well as technology use all serve to prepare children for preschool and kindergarten.”

The study culminates five years of research studies commissioned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and the PBS Ready To Learn initiative to evaluate public media resources in supporting children’s mathematics learning. Previous studies have looked at how PBS KIDS digital media can contribute to children’s learning while in preschool, on their own, and at home. The initiative, which creates educational programming and engagement activities for local public media stations and their communities, is funded by the U.S. Department of Education (ED).

“Ready To Learn research has been able to say more over time about how media can be used to support interactions between children and the adults in their lives,” said Savitha Moorthy, senior researcher at SRI Education, a division of SRI International. “It’s important for children to have well-supported experiences and for adults to have the tools and resources to support children’s learning. Most parents and caregivers want to be children’s learning partners, and our research shows how high-quality media experiences can play a role.”

The study was funded by ED through a Ready To Learn grant to CPB and PBS. Ready To Learn was created by Congress in the early 1990s to enhance the reach of, and access to, public educational media to help millions of children—particularly those living in poverty—learn the basic reading and math skills they need to succeed in school.

Learn more about the initiative and read the full study here.

The next cycle of Ready to Learn research will examine how media can be used by families at home to promote children’s science and literacy learning.

About EDC
EDC designs, implements, and evaluates programs to improve education, health, and economic opportunity worldwide. EDC’s Center for Children and Technology (CCT) investigates the roles technology can play to improve teaching and learning. Its activities range from prototype design of technology applications to professional development for teachers to strategies for ensuring equitable access to technology resources. Visit www.edc.org and www.cct.edc.org.

About SRI Education
SRI Education, a division of SRI International, is tackling the most complex issues in education to help students succeed. We work with federal and state agencies, school districts, major foundations, nonprofit organizations, and international and commercial clients to address risk factors that impede learning, assess learning gains, and use technology for educational innovation. SRI International, a research center headquartered in Menlo Park, California, creates world-changing solutions making people safer, healthier, and more productive.

About The Ready To Learn Initiative
The Ready To Learn Initiative is a cooperative agreement funded and managed by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement. It supports the development of innovative educational television and digital media targeted to preschool and early elementary school children and their families. Its general goal is to promote early learning and school readiness, with a particular interest in reaching low-income children. In addition to creating television and other media products, the program supports activities intended to promote national distribution of the programming, effective educational uses of the programming, community-based outreach, and research on educational effectiveness.

The contents of this release were developed under a grant from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. [PR/Award No. U295A100025, CFDA No. 84.295A]