Appappapp – is this a good educational app? : A study of the qualities and usefulness of apps in the teaching of reading

The aim of the present study was to find out what qualities teachers look for in apps for reading development, what qualities researchers think an app should possess, and whether the apps that teachers use have these qualities. To achieve this purpose, teachers in grades 1–3 were asked to complete a questionnaire and three educational apps were analysed with the aid of questions based on Sjödén’s (2015) dissertation “What makes good educational software?” The questions were used to study the contexts representation, interaction and social positioning. The results of the study showed that the three most desirable qualities in an educational app are that it should motivate pupils, that it should be linked to the learning goals, and that it should give pupils an opportunity to work independently. The analysis showed that the three most frequently used apps had the qualities that the teachers considered most significant and also the qualities that research has found essential in an educational app. The apps mostly elicited positive responses to the analysis questions, but there were defects in the concretizing potential of the apps, and none of them enabled social interaction through the assumption of character roles. The conclusions show that, despite the qualities of the apps, the teacher is indispensable in the teaching of reading with apps, and to choose a good educational app teachers should use the analysis in the study as a foundation but also integrate their own experience of teaching.