Ning Zou , Ruyue Wang , Chunlei Chai , Xiaohan Zhang
{"title":"Spatial adventure: An augmented reality system for children's spatial skills training","authors":"Ning Zou , Ruyue Wang , Chunlei Chai , Xiaohan Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100783","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100783","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Spatial ability is recognized as an important component of children's intelligence and plays an important role in all areas. Despite the importance and potential utility of spatial ability for children, the development of spatial ability within the primary classroom has often been neglected. Moreover, little research has been conducted to propose a systematic theoretical model for intervention training of children's spatial abilities. In addition, many of the current spatial ability trainings mainly rely on two-dimensional visual space, and there is still a need to further expand the design of intervention systems in three-dimensional visual space. In this paper, we explore a spatial cognition intervention method for children based on augmented reality technology, and design and develop an implementation of this approach in a system we call Spatial Adventure. Containing five major game levels, it comprehensively covers the training content of five spatial sub-elements: mental rotation, spatial relations, spatial visualization, spatial perception, and spatial orientation. Finally, the effectiveness of this method on children's spatial ability enhancement is verified through experiments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"46 ","pages":"Article 100783"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hanna Aarnio , Kaiju Kangas , Maria Clavert , Auli Toom
{"title":"Collaborative assessment in design-based technology education","authors":"Hanna Aarnio , Kaiju Kangas , Maria Clavert , Auli Toom","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100779","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100779","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In design-based technology education, collaborative assessment between pupils and teachers has been shown to be a key element in facilitating learning. Previous studies have focused on formative, diagnostic, and summative forms of assessment limited to pupils' learning. However, it remains unknown how these forms are manifested in design-based technology projects that involve collaborative assessment between teachers and pupils. This study takes a longitudinal perspective on collaborative assessment by examining classroom interactions in a board game design project implemented in a Finnish primary school. The participants were two experienced craft teachers and six pupils who worked on collaborative designing in two small groups. The video data were analyzed by following a three-level approach, including macro, meso, and micro levels. The results were visualized with Process-Rugs, which showed assessment connected to verbal and embodied design activities. The findings revealed that pupils' and teachers' collaboration in assessment varied at different stages of the technology project. Peer assessment was most common after the project's midpoint, while teacher–pupil collaboration focused on the beginning and end parts. Formative and summative assessment were prevalent in collaboration between pupils, while teachers led the diagnostic assessment activities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"46 ","pages":"Article 100779"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145221069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Meryl Alper, Eunju Pak, Eileen McGivney, Veronica Rubinsztain
{"title":"“Someone who has ADHD or someone who has autism should make the Rules”: A participatory study of neurodivergent Child perspectives on the ethics of Extended reality technologies","authors":"Meryl Alper, Eunju Pak, Eileen McGivney, Veronica Rubinsztain","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100782","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100782","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Extended reality (XR) technologies have the potential to shift the digital landscape for young people's education, play, and social interactions. However, the immersive and data-intensive nature of these technologies also poses risks for young people, with autistic children and/or those with ADHD (i.e., neurodivergent children) experiencing specific vulnerabilities. We conducted an interview study with 21 neurodivergent children ages 8–13, drawing on animated speculative future use scenarios as a discussion prompt, to identify their views on the possibilities and limitations of XR technologies. While their ethical critiques overlapped significantly with those of neurotypical children in prior work, they also offered novel interpretations (e.g., the importance of neurodivergent individuals being involved in XR design; heightened potential for problematic media use with VR). This study contributes to the child-computer interaction community by surfacing the views of a population whose first-person accounts of novel technologies are underrepresented. In addition, our work offers valuable insights into ethical XR research with and design for neurodivergent children, considering their priorities, interests, and concerns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"46 ","pages":"Article 100782"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145049937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ari Beckingham , Larissa Pschetz , Andrew Manches , Bettina Nissen
{"title":"EcoARology: Using AR to empower children in the face of climate change","authors":"Ari Beckingham , Larissa Pschetz , Andrew Manches , Bettina Nissen","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100771","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100771","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Climate change is often presented to children within narratives that seem disconnected from their daily lives. This distancing can compromise their sense of agency towards it potentially leading to anxiety, a sense of helplessness, or disdain. Our research addresses this disconnection by exploring the use of Augmented Reality (AR) to reveal subtle, yet critical, impacts of climate change on local species interactions. We specifically explore “phenological mismatches”, which occur when species seasonal patterns change, causing species that typically rely on them to fall out of sync, compromising their very survival. Such phenomena are becoming increasingly common due to climate-induced changes in environmental cues. To engage children with such subtle and yet pervasive climate-change phenomena in an accessible way, we developed “EcoARology,” a probe app that illustrates such phenomena while connecting it to children's environments and species that they are likely to be familiar with, ultimately giving them tools to discuss and explore actions within their own scope of agency. Workshops with 17 children and 13 caregivers revealed the ways the tool prompted conversations and how a sense of agency changed as 1) children and caregivers transitioned from fantastical to realistic ideas and, 2) from personal daily actions to broader climate issues. The work highlights the potential of AR as a tool to foster a sense of connection with climate change issues and its pivotal role in enhancing children's understanding and empathy towards these issues.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"46 ","pages":"Article 100771"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145106990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Investigating children ’s multimodal enactment in Digitally Augmented Tabletop storytelling","authors":"Ting Liu , Gabriela Gomez , Frank M. Shipman","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100770","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100770","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Young children often struggle to effectively express their ideas in both speaking and writing due to their developing cognitive and linguistic abilities. To address this challenge, this paper introduces the Digitally Augmented Tabletop Enactment (DATE) approach that integrates tactile-kinesthetic, augmented visual, and auditory elements to support motivation and multimodal enactment in storytelling by enriching children’s interactive experiences and fostering dynamic information processing across multiple sensory modalities. To implement this approach, we developed the lightweight Tabletop Imaginative Play as Enactive Storytelling (TIPES) system that combines physical play on a tabletop with real-time digital story representation. This system captures children’s manipulation of figurines and translates their actions into animated scenes, empowering them with direct control over story content and instant visual feedback.</div><div>We conducted a user study with 36 children to evaluate our approach’s impact compared to traditional tabletop storytelling. Our analyses examined the children’s embodied interactions during story enactment, writing performance, and user feedback. Results revealed that the DATE approach supported a stronger integration of physical and vocal modalities, greater narrative agency, and strengthened eye–hand coordination, reflecting deeper engagement. Importantly, children’s performance in verbal tasks such as speech narration and writing remained comparable across conditions, indicating that multimodal enactment along with an additional digital authoring experience can enrich storytelling without compromising narrative output quality. Additionally, children expressed strong enthusiasm for the DATE approach, underscoring its appeal in sustained engagement in creative storytelling. These findings highlight the potential of physical–digital tabletop enactment as a promising direction for designing educational technologies that scaffold expressive, collaborative, and developmentally appropriate narrative practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"46 ","pages":"Article 100770"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145011148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Erratum regarding missing selection and participation statement in previously published article","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100761","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100761","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"45 ","pages":"Article 100761"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145048741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Erratum regarding missing parent's consent statement due to children participation in previously published article","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100762","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100762","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"45 ","pages":"Article 100762"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145048742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jerry Fails , Aurora Constantin , Eva Eriksson , Janet Read , Gavin Sim , Marie Boden , Jessica Korte , Sanjana Bhatnagar , Judith Good
{"title":"Social imaginaries as a lens on co-designing environmental sustainability","authors":"Jerry Fails , Aurora Constantin , Eva Eriksson , Janet Read , Gavin Sim , Marie Boden , Jessica Korte , Sanjana Bhatnagar , Judith Good","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100759","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100759","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social imaginaries are a way of envisioning how people maintain society, and of understanding what is valued within that society. In this project, we worked with children on environmentally sustainable solutions for the future using co-design, a common methodology in child–computer interaction. We apply a social imaginary lens to five co-design case studies, from different geographic regions around the world, to describe and analyze variations in design practices as well as in design artifacts, and examine the ways in which children demonstrated a shared understanding of a pro-social world. The primary contribution of this paper is an illustration of the use of social imaginaries for interpreting and organizing co-design around environmental sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"46 ","pages":"Article 100759"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145049936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Luis Morales-Navarro, Daniel J. Noh, Yasmin B. Kafai
{"title":"High school students building babyGPTs: Engaging in data practices and addressing ethical issues through the construction of generative language models","authors":"Luis Morales-Navarro, Daniel J. Noh, Yasmin B. Kafai","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100769","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100769","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As generative language models have gained popularity, high school students are increasingly using them in their everyday lives. While most current research has focused on examining youth as productive <em>users</em> of generative language model-powered systems, far fewer efforts have focused on how to engage high school students as <em>designers</em> of these models to foster a better understanding of how these systems work. Building on the rich legacy of research that positions youth as designers of computing systems, we explore how to support high school students in designing very small-scale generative language models, which we call babyGPTs. Through an in-depth case study of three teenagers building a babyGPT screenplay generator, we illustrate how the team defined a design problem, developed a model, and reflected while engaging in AI/ML data practices and addressing ethical issues. This paper contributes a case study showing how students engage in data practices and ethical considerations in the construction of generative language models and outlines directions for future research on construction activities and tools to support youth in designing generative language models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"45 ","pages":"Article 100769"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144913151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring young children's metacognition during unplugged computational thinking","authors":"Ceren Ocak , Aman Yadav , Kathryn M. Rich","doi":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100767","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ijcci.2025.100767","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores the impact of computational thinking (CT) on enhancing metacognitive strategies among young learners. We conducted one-on-one video interviews with four fifth-grade students as they participated in an adapted version of the unplugged CT activity, Bebras's (2019) Programming Lamps Task. Our findings suggest that CT particularly contributes to the development of self-monitoring and evaluation strategies, such as continuous assessment of one's performance and adopting new strategies and exploring alternatives when existing solutions fail. These were particularly evident as students decomposed problems and developed step-by-step solutions in response to evolving challenges within the task scenarios. Overall, this paper discusses the potential connection between CT and metacognitive strategies, focusing how CT can be a valuable tool for teachers in developing their students' problem-solving abilities and academic performance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":38431,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction","volume":"45 ","pages":"Article 100767"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144893239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}