A Comparative Study in the Effectiveness of Interactive E-books to Teach Children Online Privacy and Security

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether interactive e-books could as effectively teach online privacy and security to children ages 7 through 10 in Maryland, Virginia, and Maine as to Canadian children. The research replicated a study performed in Canada (Zhang-Kennedy & Chiasson, 2016), to see if the effects are the same. The study also investigated the persistence of the privacy models held by Canadian children identified prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had informed the design of the interactive e-book, amongst children in the Eastern Coast region of the United States. Fifteen parent and children pairs completed the study, which included a device criteria questionnaire, usability evaluations, a pre-privacy knowledge assessment before co-reading session, and a post-privacy knowledge assessment after a ten-minute distractor. Data analysis was conducted for all 15 parent-child pairs. During initial synthesis it became evident that the design of the interactive e-book was not suitable for children aged 10, which confirmed the intention of the original Canadian researcher to target young children aged 7 through 9. Therefore, results for two child participants aged 10 were excluded for the analysis that evaluated the e-book’s effectiveness, but their results were included in the analysis for the persistence of privacy models. Children in the study showed an increase in comprehension of online security and improvement on safety conscious behavior similar to the study involving Canadian children. However, children in the United States had less positive experiences with the interactive e-book than children in the Canadian study. Three mental models of privacy were found to have persisted amongst the child participants in the United States: ‘to be alone’, ‘to hide secrets/special things’, ‘to keep things to yourself’. One model did not persist after reading the e-book: ‘to not talk to strangers’ but evolved into ‘don’t trust strangers’. One new model was identified, ‘don’t let anyone see you’. Additionally, the study identified some of the ways that children’s mental models of the world were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, the goal is to provide further empirical evidence and insight to inform the design of better cybersecurity tools for young children.