How do Canadian parents evaluate numeracy content in math apps for young children?

Well-designed math apps can foster children's numeracy development. Although parents are interested in using math apps for their children, the quantity and variability in quality of apps can make app selection challenging. As such, it is important to know how parents evaluate numeracy content in math apps for their children. This study investigated parents' evaluations of four numeracy apps of varying quality. Forty-five parents of 3- to 6-year-old children explored each app for three minutes on their own device and rated each on 17 early numeracy skills. Parents were conservative in their ratings of numeracy skills. Likelihood of downloading apps ranged from 24.4% to 73%. If the first app viewed was of the highest quality, it influenced their subsequent ratings suggesting that parents could be using it as a benchmark. Individual differences affected numeracy ratings, such that parents high in both math teaching confidence and/or anxiety rated the apps more favourably than parents low in those traits. Parents experienced some challenges in identifying better content and design features and individual differences contributed to this. Outcomes also suggest practical supports such as providing parents with a "good" referent may aid app selection.