Research On The Influence On Pupils’ Cognitive Development Exerted By Tablet Personal Computers As A Cognitive Tool

With the development and prevalence of intelligent mobile terminals, especially with tablet personal computers and smart phones, traditional teaching environment and models have been radically changed. New educational experience has been provided for teachers and students. And whether such intelligent tools can improve learning efficiency has become an issue educators and experts pay great attention to. Based on the theory of information processing,constructivism and the theory of distributed cognition, through the research of features of tablet personal computers,the characteristics of pupils’ development of cognition, and relationship between reading ability and cognitive development, and English reading ability this article as the breakthrough point to study the cognitive level. Several methods are utilized here like literature analysis, questionnaire,empirical study and interview. Empirical studies are carried out in primary English reading classes involved the participation with tablet personal computers as cognition tools concerning five cognitive factors including perception, attention, memory, language, and meta-cognition.The result will be considered to better employ tablet personal computers as a reference to enhance students’ learning.The main conclusions is drawn.The usage of tablet personal computers can improve pupils’ cognitive development. Statistical significance is found in such factors as perception, memory and meta-cognition.The result also shows the extent of the impact on gender and cognitive level:the promoting effect of girls was higher than that of boys, and that of higher cognitive level students was higher than students with low cognitive level.The possible innovative points here are as follows. Firstly, tablet personal computers are used as a cognitive tool to research on pupils’ cognitive development. Secondly, empirical studies are rare as on the influence on pupils’ cognitive development exerted by tablet personal computers.Several dimensions are mentioned here, thus making it practically meaningful. Thirdly, the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods are employed. The qualitative research is based on the questionnaire and the follow-up research and interviews are made as the addition of the explanation so as to greatly enhance the reliability of this research.