Swedish preschool teachers’ experiences from pedagogical use of digital play

The purpose of the study is to increase knowledge about Swedish kindergarten teachers’ experiences regarding the pedagogical use of digital play in pre-school teaching.

Three main themes emerged from the analyses: (1) wider educational opportunities with digital play, (2) digital play for learning purposes and (3) kindergarten teachers’ ways of developing the pedagogical use of digital play in pre-school class. The author of the article concludes that kindergarten teachers in Swedish pre-school classes use digital play to strengthen, not replace, established pedagogical practices in pre-school teaching. Digital play was seen to give children more opportunities for creative work, improve opportunities for pedagogical documentation, facilitate the gathering of information (using the internet), increase access to more educational material and enable opportunities to create new educational activities. The kindergarten teachers had two main intentions when using digital tools in pre-school teaching: to prepare the children for school and to prepare them for life in a digitalised society.

Kindergarten teachers in Swedish pre-school classes, both private and public, were invited to participate in the study. The data collection took the form of a 40 minute semi-structured interview with the participants (over the telephone). A total of eleven kindergarten teachers participated in the study. The researchers used an inductive approach to the thematic analysis of the data material.

Marklund, L. (2020). “Swedish preschool teachers’ experiences from pedagogical use of digital play". Journal of Early Childhood Education Research, 9(1):171-193.