Engaging in vivid conversations is crucial for the social and cognitive development of young children and for building their understanding of science phenomena. In this regard, educators play a pivotal role in shaping interactions with learners by providing adequate scaffolds to promote sustained shared thinking. Tablet computers are considered to have substantial potential for supporting learning, particularly in enriching communication and collaboration, as well as in making science phenomena more accessible. However, there are concerns that increased screen time may lead to social isolation. To address this situation, the present multiple-case study explores the impact of using tablet computers’ video functionality on the quality of teacher–child interactions during a specific play-based learning scenario in the domain of science. The investigation, which employed a mixed-method approach, followed two individual teachers separately during 24 lessons each in a videographic setup and isolated 200 science content-relevant interaction episodes. These episodes were coded according to their interaction quality in an inter-rater agreement procedure using MAXQDA. High-quality interactions were defined as those episodes involving a deep, prolonged, intellectual and content-specific exchange between the teacher and at least one child, based on both teacher and children playing their active roles in the participation of the talk. The results indicated that using tablets in the specific play scenario under investigation was associated with teacher–child interactions of longer duration, variable scaffold quality among teachers, and increased verbal engagement from children. These results counter the concerns that the use of digital media might lead to screen-based isolation and suggest that tablet computers can be harnessed for valuable educational interactions.

进行生动的对话对于幼儿的社交和认知发展以及建立他们对科学现象的理解至关重要。在这方面，教育工作者通过提供足够的支架来促进持续的共同思维，在塑造与学习者的互动方面发挥着关键作用。平板电脑被认为在支持学习方面具有巨大潜力，特别是在丰富沟通和协作以及使科学现象更容易理解方面。然而，有人担心增加屏幕时间可能会导致社交孤立。为了解决这种情况，目前的多案例研究探讨了在科学领域特定的基于游戏的学习场景中，使用平板电脑的视频功能对师生互动质量的影响。这项调查采用混合方法，在 24 节课中分别跟踪两位老师，每节课都采用视频设置，并隔离了 200 个与科学内容相关的互动片段。使用 MAXQDA 根据评分者间协议程序中的交互质量对这些片段进行编码。高质量的互动被定义为教师和至少一个孩子之间进行深入、持久、智力和特定内容的交流，基于教师和孩子在谈话中发挥的积极作用。结果表明，在所调查的特定游戏场景中使用平板电脑与师生互动时间较长、教师之间的支架质量不同以及儿童言语参与度增加有关。 这些结果反驳了人们对数字媒体的使用可能导致基于屏幕的隔离的担忧，并表明平板电脑可以用于有价值的教育互动。