Productive struggle in children's app-based digital reading

Journal article

As children's learning increasingly occurs through digital apps, games, and AI-enabled technologies, a fundamental question emerges: what happens to productive struggle when persistence becomes a choice? Productive struggle is widely recognised as an important condition for deep learning, yet research has predominantly examined it within classroom contexts where teachers provide real-time scaffolding. Comparatively little attention has been paid to how challenge is encountered and navigated within digital learning environments, particularly in early childhood contexts where adult mediation cannot be presumed and learners can choose to exit an activity with a single tap. This exploratory study advances a design-mediated model of productive struggle and examines its potential relevance within a game-based digital reading platform for children aged four to nine years. Drawing on a thirty-day dataset comprising 419,700 digital story sessions across eighteen languages, the study uses descriptive behavioural indicators, including perceived difficulty ratings, completion patterns, disengagement, and scaffold use, to explore how young learners engage with challenge in a naturalistic digital environment. The study seeks to provide an initial conceptual foundation for understanding productive struggle in digitally mediated reading contexts. The behavioural data highlight the potential importance of design in shaping how learners encounter and navigate difficulty. The paper advances a design-mediated model of productive struggle and provides an initial foundation for future research examining how challenge, support, and learner agency interact in digital learning environments.

Authors: Ratner, S; Murphy, VA

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Frontiers Media
• Journal: Frontiers in Developmental Psychology
• Acceptance date: 2026-06-11
• EISSN: 2813-7779
• Language: English
• Keywords: digital reading; productive struggle; digital learning; early childhood; media