Mobile Device Use Among Rural, Low-Income Families and the Feasibility of an App to Encourage Preschoolers’ Physical Activity: Qualitative Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: As mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous, technology-based interventions provide a promising strategy to positively influence health behaviors of families with young children. However, questions remain about the feasibility and acceptability of intervention delivery via mobile apps in low-income, rural settings and among families with preschoolers. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to understand the content and context of mobile device use for preschoolers; explore parent beliefs on this topic, including the acceptability of intervention delivery via mobile devices; and test a prototype of an app to encourage preschoolers' physical activity with both parents and children. METHODS: Parents (n=29) were recruited from 5 preschool centers in eastern, rural Colorado to complete a semistructured telephone interview regarding preschoolers' mobile device use. A second sample of parents (n=31) was recruited from the same preschool centers to view the app prototype independently and provide feedback. A third sample of preschool children (n=24) was videotaped using the app in small groups to measure engagement and record their responses to the app. RESULTS: Five key content areas emerged from the telephone interviews: (1) mobile devices are an important part of families' everyday routines, and parents have parameters governing their use; (2) parents often use mobile devices as a tool for behavior management; (3) parents clearly distinguish between mobile device use for learning versus entertainment; (4) parents have an overarching desire for balance in regard to their child's mobile device use; and (5) parents were generally supportive of the idea of using mobile apps for intervention delivery. From the app prototype testing with parents, participants reacted positively to the app and felt that it would be useful in a variety of situations. Testing with preschoolers showed the children were highly engaged with the app and a majority remained standing and/or actively moving through the entire length of the app. CONCLUSIONS: Mobile devices are already integrated into most families' daily routines and appear to be an acceptable method of intervention delivery in low-income families in rural Colorado. The physical activity app represents an innovative way to reach these families and, with further improvements based on participant feedback, will provide children with a unique opportunity to practice key movement skills.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".