Thousands of educational apps are available to students, teachers, and parents, yet research on their effectiveness is limited. This meta-analysis synthesized findings from 36 intervention studies and 285 effect sizes evaluating the effectiveness of educational apps for preschool to Grade 3 children and the moderating role of methodological, participant, and intervention characteristics. Using random effects meta-regression with robust variance estimation, we summarized the overall impact of educational apps and examined potential moderator effects. First, results from rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental studies yielded a mean weighted effect size of +0.31 standard deviations on overall achievement and comparable effects in both math and literacy. Second, the positive overall effect masks substantial variability in app effectiveness, as meta-regression analyses revealed three significant moderators of treatment effects. Treatment effects were larger for studies involving preschool rather than K–3 students, for studies using researcher-developed rather than standardized outcomes, and for studies measuring constrained rather than unconstrained skills.

成千上万的教育应用可供学生，教师和家长使用，但对其有效性的研究有限。这项荟萃分析综合了36项干预研究的结果和285种效应量，评估了教育应用程序对学龄前至3年级儿童的有效性以及方法论，参与者和干预特征的调节作用。使用带有鲁棒方差估计的随机效应元回归，我们总结了教育应用程序的总体影响，并研究了潜在的主持人效应。首先，严格的实验和准实验研究得出的结果对整体成绩的平均加权效应大小为+0.31标准差，在数学和读写能力上均具有可比的作用。其次，积极的整体效果掩盖了应用程序有效性的实质性差异，由于荟萃回归分析显示了三种重要的治疗效果调节剂。对于学龄前儿童而不是K-3学生的研究，使用研究人员制定而不是标准化结果的研究以及测量受约束而非不受约束技能的研究，治疗效果更大。