Wonder children and victimizing parents – preservice early childhood teachers’ beliefs about children and technology at home

ABSTRACT

In this study, written assignments from preservice early childhood teachers were examined to find answers to the following research questions: [1] What beliefs do preservice teachers have about children and technology at home? [2] How are parents represented in preservice teachers’ beliefs about children and technology? [3] What are the relationships between these beliefs and preservice teachers’ views about the role of technology in early childhood education? Preservice teachers in this study had idolized beliefs about children and discriminating beliefs about parents. Children were believed to be born-competent technology users. Parents were believed to lack the skills or will needed to regulate their children’s technology use. It was expressed to be the responsibility of early childhood education to ensure that play and social interaction are still included in young children’s lives. These findings propose that students’ beliefs about children and parents need to be afforded attention in educational technology courses.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher beliefs
• ICT
• technology
• children
• parents
• early childhood education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Pekka Mertala (M.Ed.) is a Ph.D. researcher and teacher in University of Oulu. His ongoing research focuses on teacher beliefs in ICT integration.

ORCID

Pekka Mertala http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3835-0220

Notes

1 In this paper, the terms ‘information and communication technology’, ‘technology’, and ‘digital media’ are treated as synonyms. These terms are used when referring to digital devices, including computers and mobile devices, and digital software and applications, such as digital games.

2 The term follows Finnish discourse and refers to institutional education for children from 0 to 6 years old. The term preschool is used when discussing the premises where early childhood education is provided.

3 In this paper, the term ‘preservice teacher’ refers to one who is undergoing initial teacher training. The term ‘student’ is used as synonym for preservice teacher.

4 The mean age of the personnel in Finnish preschools is 44 years, and one-third are 50 or older (Municipal Employers, 2014).

5 By everyone, they were referring to children.

6 As the technologies discussed in the essays included not only computers but also tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles, and televisions, I have replaced the term ‘computer’ with the term ‘technology’, which better captures the diversity of technologies represented in the essays.

7 Whilst the data offer no comprehensive account for this, it seems that as children were believed to be savvy technology users, there was not that much that early childhood teachers could teach them.

8 In Western societies.

9 A daily children’s TV programme aired by the Finnish National Broadcasting Company.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation [Jenny ja Antti Wihurin Rahasto].