A cross-cultural exploration of early childhood educators’ beliefs and experiences around the use of touchscreen¹

1 For the purposes of this paper, the term 'touchscreens' is used to refer to hand held digital devices such as tablets and smartphones which have a touch controlled interface. The term also includes interactive whiteboards which are widely used in early years settings.

technologies with children under 3 years of age

ABSTRACT

This paper will discuss the beliefs and experiences of early childhood educators across three countries, England, Norway and Greece, in relation to the use of touchscreen technology with the youngest children in their settings. Building on previous research which explored parents’ perspectives, this study now extends the investigation to early childhood educators who play a key role in children’s learning and development. A detailed online survey was implemented across the three countries based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework and with a focus on their teaching philosophy. Findings indicate that although there are some pertinent cultural differences, overall educators are generally confident when using technology for work/personal purposes but less so when integrating technology with very young children. Educators across all countries were not satisfied with their training. The country of origin had a significant impact on teachers’ philosophy and their views towards technology, with Norwegian educators reporting the most positive views towards using touchscreen technologies in educational settings with very young children. Macrosystemic factors in each country could be explored in future research to contribute to a deeper interpretation of similarities and differences between countries and cultural contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood settings
• touchscreen technology
• teaching philosophy
• children under 3 years
• infants and toddlers
• educators’ beliefs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Maria Hatzigianni http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9378-2598

Notes

1 For the purposes of this paper, the term 'touchscreens' is used to refer to hand held digital devices such as tablets and smartphones which have a touch controlled interface. The term also includes interactive whiteboards which are widely used in early years settings.

2 The result of the ANOVA formula, the F-statistic (also called the F-ratio), allows for the analysis of multiple groups of data to determine the variability between samples and within samples (Dancey and Reidy 2011).

3 To determine whether any of the differences between the means are statistically significant, we compared the p-value to our significance level (0.05) to assess the null hypothesis. If the p-value is less than or equal to the significance level, you reject the null hypothesis and conclude that not all of population means are equal and consequently you adopt the alternate hypothesis (Dancey and Reidy 2011).

4 Means of samples of the groups are presented.

5 The standardized beta coefficient compares the strength of the effect of each individual independent variable to the dependent variable (Freedman 2009).

6 Young children are innocent and need our care and protection as much as possible at this age – starting using technology from such a young age might be harmful.

7 Young children are young explorers and need to build their confidence by taking initiatives and be creative – they can start using technology if it is integrated in their everyday routines/activities and it is developmentally appropriate.

8 Young children have rights and practitioners should respect and support these rights. If children are interested in these technologies practitioners should respect this and let the children use technology.

9 Young children grow up in a world infused with technology and they need to start using technology as early as possible so they progress with their education and stand a better chance for finding a better job in the future.