IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v13y2023i4p21582440231217727.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Factors Influencing Early Childhood Educators’ Use of Digital Educational Aids: A Sequential Explanatory Study

Author

Listed:
  • Manar S. Alotaibi

Abstract

Kindergarten educators play a crucial role in promoting young children’s technological awareness and ensuring that they possess the necessary skills and knowledge to integrate technology effectively into their teaching practices. This study examines the factors that influence early childhood educators’ use of digital educational aids, that is, media and technology. The study employs a sequential explanatory design, which is a mixed-methods approach consisting of two phases. The first phase is quantitative, where data is collected through surveys, and the second phase is qualitative, where semi-structured interviews are conducted among a small subsample to gain a deeper understanding of the participants’ perspectives. The survey data collected from 369 early childhood educators revealed that attitudes toward the value of technology in aiding children’s learning had the strongest influence on technology use. Additionally, semi-structured interviews conducted with 62 educators found that teacher beliefs, knowledge, and attitudes, as well as access to technology and media resources, influenced the frequency and quality of technology and media use in preschool classrooms. These findings emphasize the importance of extrinsic factors including support, resources, and policies, while intrinsic factors include confidence and beliefs. Moreover, teacher attitudes toward the value of technology for learning and confidence using technology had the strongest positive effects on actual technology use.

Suggested Citation

  • Manar S. Alotaibi, 2023. "Factors Influencing Early Childhood Educators’ Use of Digital Educational Aids: A Sequential Explanatory Study," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:13:y:2023:i:4:p:21582440231217727
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440231217727
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440231217727
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440231217727?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hiya Almazroa & Wadha Alotaibi, 2023. "Teaching 21st Century Skills: Understanding the Depth and Width of the Challenges to Shape Proactive Teacher Education Programmes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-25, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. María-Carmen Ricoy & Joseba Delgado-Parada & María del Pino Díaz-Pereira & Sálvora Feliz, 2024. "Creative Environments for Sustainability in Organizations Promoting the Education of Vulnerable Groups," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-15, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:13:y:2023:i:4:p:21582440231217727. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.