A cross-cultural study on technology use in preschool classrooms: early childhood teacher’s preferences, time-use, impact and association with children’s play

Technology plays a large role in toddlers’ everyday life experiences. Currently, technology is used to support and improve learning activities and in relation to children’s play. The purpose of this study is to understand how much time kindergarten teachers spend implementing technology in kindergartens in eight different countries. The countries represented in the study are Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Turkey and the United States.

The data indicated great similarities between the countries, where technology-supported play was the least used form of play, and indoor play not supported by technology and outdoor play were the most commonly used forms of play. The researchers also found similarities between kindergarten teachers’ understandings of the value of technology-supported play, despite not using it very much and despite reporting different aspects of contributions from the technology. Furthermore, the researchers uncovered differences in how much time was spent on technology-supported play and the type of equipment and resources that were available to the children in each country.

Each of the authors collected data from their respective countries using a survey that included 30 items (questions). The survey contained two parts. The first part consisted of 8 items with the aim of collecting demographic information. The second part of the survey consisted of 22 closed-ended and open-ended questions with the aim of identifying the participants’ definitions, use and understanding of play.

Slutsky, R., Kragh-Müller, G., Rentzou, K., Tuul, M., Guven, M.G., Foerch, D. & Paz-Albo, J. (2019). "A cross-cultural study on technology use in preschool classrooms: early childhood teacher’s preferences, time-use, impact and association with children’s play”. Early Child Development and Care, 191(5):713–725.