Researching Professional Practice
- Sara Zakariah
- May 23, 2023
- 20 min read
Updated: Mar 25, 2024
Digital Age and Early Years
Abstract
This research presents the challenges faced by early childhood educators in Singapore when integrating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) lessons in a preschool classroom. It also addresses the educator’s competency level and support rendered by the management. A mixed method approach was adopted in two stages: a questionnaire was given to selected participants to answer and a qualitative survey at the end to help determine which factor of challenge proved to be a major obstacle. The results showed that the lack of resources was the highest obstacle educators face when preparing young children for the digital age. It also reflects the convergence of educator’s personal beliefs and their competency to deliver ICT integrated lessons. These findings suggest that the stakeholders of Singapore’s early childhood education industry need to review their support structure in order to cater to the provision of resources, funding and professional development courses for early childhood educators.
Introduction
Early childhood programs in Singapore are built to develop children holistically (Ministry of Education, 2018). This is evident in the national curriculum framework where six learning domains are highlighted for early childhood educators to plan their curriculum around. The learning domains are numeracy, language and literacy, discovery of the world, aesthetic and creative expression, motor skill development and social and emotional development (Ministry of Education, 2018). In this framework, information and technology communication (ICT) falls under a small sub-category of discovery of the world.
With the rise of technology, early childhood educators are required to integrate ICT into their lessons. ICT has become an essential in our everyday lives as most things we use are related to ICT, such as online banking, e-mails and social media to keep updated with friends and distant relatives. ICT can be defined as “a means to seek new information and communication through the use of any electronic or digital device” (Mishra & Joseph, 2012). A decade ago, the use of ICT encompassed a projector, television, cassette players and audio recorders to name a few. In this millennium, children’s experience with ICT has been optimised with the introduction of the interactive board, touch screen devices, computers and many more. This adds on to the list of things an early childhood professional has to consider when planning lessons for children’s holistic development.
The topic of digital age and early years is a concern because young children are growing up as native citizens of the digital age. Young children are already using ICT outside of school. It was indicated in McKenny & Voogt (2010) research that ICT can be an incredible resource to support learning for young children when used wisely. Therefore, early childhood professionals should be preparing children for the digital age as part of their curriculum in the school despite its limitations. The incorporation of devices such as the iMac and iPad Pro into teaching practices could provide opportunities for young children to interact with different devices. This method could increase children’s engagement in their lessons which would help them with their holistic development. Preparing children for the digital age is important as they will be using it in the future as the advancement of technology keeps progressing. However, not all early childhood professionals share the same beliefs and practices. The preparation of children for the digital age is not as evident in Singapore’s early childhood education as there isn’t much focus on it.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to find out what type of challenges early childhood educators face when preparing young children for the digital age, through ICT integration in their lessons. The research will focus on the competency level of early childhood educators and the support rendered by the management.
Literature Review
The issue of young children using technology has risen over the years. A joint position statement made by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Fred Rogers Centre for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College, 2012 stated that with the increased availability and access to digital devices for young children, technologies can be used for children’s learning and development with appropriate guidance from early childhood educators. Therefore, it is important for the early childhood education industry to consider integrating ICT more dominantly in the preschool curriculum. However, ICT integration in preschool curriculum is not as evident as learning through play or teaching emerging literacy concepts despite the resources made available by the government. The literatures chosen to address this issue are classified into three key variables – challenges, competency and support. Each of these categories will support and highlight the similarities and differences in question of this study.
Challenges
The growth in ICT integration into early childhood education and preparation for early childhood educators to use ICT in their teaching practices have been increasing. Other researches have proven that the real issue is not the consideration of ICT integration but how well it is being integrated by early childhood educators (Ihmeidah, 2009; Liu & Pange, 2015). Therefore, the expectation of a quality ICT integrated lesson is a pressure put on some educators that they dismiss it as a whole. In other papers, there are challenges that the early childhood educators face when implementing ICT in their lessons which they are unsure of how to overcome (Liu & Pange, 2015) such as the lack of funds and resources (Nikolopoulou & Gialamas, 2013), lack of technological skills (Ihmeideh, 2009; Nikolopoulou & Gialamas, 2013), lack of time (Ihmeideh, 2009), limited classroom conditions (Nikolopoulou & Gialamas, 2013). Therefore, an in-depth study into how overcoming these challenges will help improve early childhood educators in their implementation of ICT integration into their teaching practices. Early childhood educators are also burdened with the perceived risks and benefits involved in the use of ICT and the role of the parents when it comes to fostering the use of ICT in school. This is supported by the results of intrinsic and extrinsic barriers faced by Australian early childhood educators (Fox, et al., 2016), most of which share the same weight as the four challenges mentioned above. Additionally, early childhood educators have to convince parents of the benefits of ICT should they share a difference of opinion in the use of ICT for young children (Mishra & Joseph, 2012). Therefore, this research aims to find out if the challenges are similar here in Singapore. It is important to address the common challenges faced by early childhood educators now, so that it could potentially provide a smoother transition to ICT integration for young children in the future.
Competency
A review of literature has raised a concern that other than the challenges mentioned, early childhood educators have to be competent. They need to be properly trained and equipped with the right knowledge and skills to facilitate young children in ICT integrated lessons, in line with their attitude and beliefs (Gialamas & Nikolopoulou, 2010; Prestridge, 2012; Konca, Ozel & Zelyurt, 2016). Therefore, when early childhood educators attend professional development courses, they should look out for programmes which will offer them the content of how to integrate ICT into a lesson for young children instead of just teaching them how to use a particular software or hardware. Unless, the early childhood educators themselves are not IT savvy and requires assistance on using the devices or applications. The competency of an early childhood educator determines the quality of their teaching practices, especially when it comes to ICT. Competency is made up of the technological skills and beliefs of an early childhood educator (Gialamas & Nikolopoulou, 2010; Konca, Ozel & Zelyurt, 2016). If an early childhood educator is equipped with the proper ICT skills but does not hold the belief of ICT integration for young children’s holistic development, she would not include ICT into her teaching practices successfully. However, should an early childhood educator have strong beliefs with ICT integration but neither possess the skills nor knowledge of ICT, she will not be able to include ICT into her teaching practices successfully either. There are modules and courses on ICT when an early childhood educator undergoes their professional studies, however there is a gap between what was taught in the courses and what is required to be executed in the classroom (Kalogiannakis, 2010). Therefore, it is important that early childhood educators understand the importance of ICT integration and attend professional development courses to continuously improve their skills and teaching practices for children’s holistic development. Additionally, when a new device or application is launched, early childhood educators should keep themselves up to date with the skills on using it for children’s learning and development.
Support
The prevalence of technology has brought the governing bodies of early childhood education in Singapore to prepare early childhood educators for the integration of ICT in the classroom. The Ministry of Education in Singapore published a guidebook in 2017 for preschool centres (Ministry of Education, 2017) to help provide a framework on the integration of ICT into teaching practices. With the given resources from the government, early childhood practitioners have to take the responsibility to equip themselves with the right skills and knowledge to integrate ICT into their daily lessons for young children.
Some research has found that early childhood educators do not utilise the available ICT resources in the classroom effectively if they do not have the specific training (Önkol, Zembat, Balat, 2011). Therefore, the early childhood providers, leaders and managers should send early childhood educators to specific trainings which will equip them with the knowledge and skills on how to effectively integrate ICT into their teaching practices instead of courses with the sole intent of teaching them how to use ICT devices. Konca, Ozel & Zelyurt (2016) distinguished three types of knowledge and skills which are essential for early childhood educators to integrate ICT in their teaching practices: specific technology knowledge and skills, technology-supported pedagogical knowledge and skills and lastly technology-related-classroom management knowledge and skills. With the ICT framework from Singapore’s Ministry of Education, it meets the last knowledge and skill set mentioned earlier. Early childhood educators are given a set of guidelines on how they can use ICT for children ages four to six. There are three guiding principles for ICT teaching practices in the framework that supports early childhood educators when integrating ICT into their learning activities for young children – the belief that children are curious, active and competent learners, the understanding that children learn through play and the understanding that children learn through quality interactions (Ministry of Education, 2018). Early childhood educators in Singapore has the resources on how to integrate ICT into their teaching practices, but the belief and understanding of the importance of ICT integration for young children’s holistic development has to be further developed through appropriate professional development and training courses. Similar to how an early childhood educator cannot successfully carry out a music lesson without the proper knowledge and skills, they also cannot integrate ICT successfully if they are not competent.
Methodology, Methods and Ethics'
This research was conducted using the systematic approach of Emily Calhoun’s action research cycle. There are five processes to this cycle, (1) select an area of focus, (2) collect data, (3) organise data, (4) analyse and interpret data, (5) take action (Jimerson, 2013). The selected area of focus for this research is “Digital Age & Early Years”. There is a substantial amount of journal articles and earlier research studies in relation to this topic as reflected in the literature review. This method of research is appropriate for the educational setting as it can be used to study a large issues or smaller area of concerns from the selected area of focus like the one in this paper. It also allows room to collect, organise, analyse and interpret data before concluding to a discussion for recommended actions to be taken.
The purpose of this research is to find out the barriers that early childhood educators face when preparing young children for the digital age. This research will focus on the IT skills of early childhood educators and the support rendered by the management and governing bodies. In order to address this issue, it has been broken down into two parts – finding out the ICT skills early childhood educators possess and if they receive any form of support from the management in terms of professional development and provision of the necessary technological resources. Based on past research by other scholars, reflected in the literature review, this study will focus on three key variables – challenges, competency and support.
This research will reflect the mixed-method data collected from consenting participants through a questionnaire and one survey question at the end (Refer to Appendix A). According to Creswell & Plano Clark (2011), a mixed-method approach should only be used where the combined data more fully answers the research question than would be possible by either qualitative and quantitative data alone. The questionnaire is divided into four sections – two base questions to help determine if the participant has attended any courses related to ICT and if they are using ICT with their children in the first place. Based on their answer to the second base question, they will complete one set of follow-up questions. The first set of follow-up questions will provide data on how they implement ICT in their classroom, the challenges they face when they are using ICT in their classroom and the support they receive from the management. The second set of follow-up questions will provide data on educator’s views of ICT implementation in the classroom, ways that management can support to encourage the use of ICT and the types of professional development courses they would like to attend to help them incorporate the use of ICT in their classroom. The last section of the questionnaire is a survey to help determine major barriers affecting the use of ICT.
The data collected from the questionnaire were analysed by means of interpretation of participant’s answers from the questionnaire and the survey results were presented in a bar graph. Participants were given full consent, anonymity and confidentially. In order to ensure anonymity and confidentiality in collecting, coding, interpreting and storing participant’s personal information; their personal data are not reflected in the data analysis. Upon completion of data analysis, participant’s information in the consent form will be held in confidence abiding to the existing Data Protection Laws in Singapore until 2025 (Personal Data Protection Commission Singapore, 2018). Prior to their consent, participants were presented with the option to drop out of answering the questionnaire along the way. When a participant withdrew their consent half-way through answering the questionnaire, their responses were discarded or surrendered to the Centre manager or leader. This was to ensure that their responses do not result in an inconclusive or ambiguous data by providing socially accepted answers when met with an uncomfortable question in the questionnaire. Additionally, when a participant refused to answer a question in the questionnaire due to an ethical issue such as compromising their teaching practices, personal beliefs or workplace’s mission, vision and core values, they were able to skip the question entirely.
The outline of the research inclusion and exclusion criteria were as follow:
1. Eight English speaking teachers
2. Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education – Teaching
3. L2 English Teacher (Early Childhood Development Agency, 2018)
The underlying reasons as to the aforementioned criteria was to ensure that there was no language barrier when answering the questionnaire and that participants possessed the basic knowledge of early childhood education and child development. In addition, to the criteria of selected pool of participants, several documents and journal articles were chosen and analysed to help provide a deeper understanding of the main issue faced by other practitioners around the world. This was to ensure that it was relevant for a field study to be conducted in Singapore’s early childhood education sector and find out if practitioners here face similar issues as others from around the world.
Prior to conducting the field study for this research, a permission of access form (Refer to Appendix B) was required to be approved by the respective Centre leaders of participating Centres at least a month prior to the intended date of visit. An e-mail was sent out to the Centre leader(s) together with a follow up phone call a week later to communicate the interest and processes of conducting the field study at the respective Centres. All potential participants were required to read the participant information letter (Refer to Appendix C) and were given two weeks to consider if they would like to contribute to this study. Upon garnering their interest and consent, participants were required to sign a consent form (Refer to Appendix D) before the questionnaire was given to them. Participants were given a maximum of 75 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Participants were allowed to answer the questionnaire in a comfortable setting in the Centre, preferably in their respective classrooms. These arrangements were in place to monitor proper conduct of this research.
The ethical application for this research was approved by School of Education Ethics Committee, Birmingham City University in United Kingdom. Upon completion of this study, the results will be submitted to Birmingham City University for assessment. After receiving the assessed research work, should the participants be interested in the results of this study, they will be invited for a meet-up and the analysis of their contribution to this study will be verbally presented to them. Alternatively, a Centre visit will be scheduled with the Centre leaders at the participating venues for a presentation of the assessed research work.
Findings and Analysis
The data below were collected from two childcare centres in Singapore, it comprises of six early childhood educators in total. The sites involved will be referred to as Centre 1, a childcare centre from the government sector and Centre 2, a childcare centre from the private sector. Participants 1 – 3 were from Centre 1 and participants 4 – 6 were from Centre 2. The two base questions in the questionnaire and survey were answered by all six participants. The data will be presented in accordance to the three key variables of this research to help answer the main question:
Support | Competency | Challenges |
|
(Konca, et al., 2016) |
|
Support
The first base question revealed that five out of six early childhood educators have never attended any professional development courses related to ICT in their years of work experience in Singapore’s early childhood industry. Only Participant 2 answered differently and when asked what type of courses she attended in relation to ICT, she mentioned that she was sent to learn how to use the iMac when it was first launched in Centre 2, six years ago as she is a senior teacher with over 25 years of experience and did not know how to use a computer which runs on a different operating system than Microsoft. This reflected the support given by Centre 2’s management team to provide Participant 2 with the required technological knowledge and skills in using a device. However, it did not support the other two types of knowledge and skills which are essential for her to integrate ICT in her teaching practices as mentioned in Konca, Ozel and Zelyurt’s (2016) study. The only training the other five participants had in relation to ICT was one compulsory module in their course of study when they took their Diploma in Early Childhood Studies which imparted more technology-supported pedagogical knowledge and skills in terms of using devices such as a camera, projector or touch screen devices such as the iPad or interactive white board.
Based on an observation made during the Centre visit, Centre 2 only had an iMac in each Preschool classroom and the Centre leader shared that each class has their own iPad. Those were the only two ICT devices made available to the early childhood educators in Centre 2. Upon arrival at Centre 1, the Centre leader used an application online to register my visit and took the necessary health check measures before I started my research. There were no computers in the classrooms, only along the corridor. A projector was in placed in the Music Room and there was one CD player in the early-years classroom. Participant 1 shared her views on how the management could support her in ICT integration by providing necessary hardware instead of depending on her to bring in her own devices should her lesson require the use of ICT. Her verbatim response to question “What type of support do you receive from your management?” was:
My Principal allows me to use my own handphone and Bluetooth speaker to introduce new songs to the children during my lessons. Even though it is not professional to be seen with my personal phone, my principal understands that sometimes the computer at work is either being used by another class or takes too long to load a video on YouTube. I do hope that the IT department will consider giving us a better computer or at least a tablet of some sort to use for lessons instead of always having to use my own phone.
None of the participants were aware of the guidebook released by the Ministry of Education in 2017 to provide early childhood educators with a framework on the integration of ICT into teaching practices. They were familiar with the curriculum framework for kindergartens in Singapore but have never heard of the ICT guidebook prior to their participation in this research. This showed that a resource could be made available for use by the government, but early childhood educators should also be made aware of the type of resources available for them. There is a lack of focus and support on ICT integration from the management in both Centre's in terms of providing the necessary resources in terms of guidebooks and professional development courses. Centre 2 provides the early childhood educators with the necessary hardware such as iMac and iPad in each Preschool classroom.
Competency
Four out of six early childhood educators incorporated the use of ICT in their classroom. Participants were not selected based on their age-group, but from the small sample size of participants, the younger educators were more likely to have ICT integrated in their lesson. Most of whom came from Centre 2, as there were more resources made available in the Centre. The four participants who incorporated ICT in their classroom shared that they do so by means of playing music online, creating shapes and collages on Microsoft PowerPoint on the iMac, free drawing on the iPad, watching educational videos on YouTube and the use of various learning applications or websites such as Letterland and Google search engine. All four participants shared similar responses on how ICT integration makes learning fun for young children and that it lightens the workload on classroom management as children tend to behave better as they wait anxiously for their turn to use the iMac or iPad.
The verbatim response from the two participants who did not use ICT in their classroom to the question “What are your views of using ICT in your classroom?” were:
ICT introduces a good basic introductory level for the children to get to know about the technology devices, but I think it’s too much stress to put on young children on top preparing them for formal schooling in Primary One where there don’t take their exams and lessons through or about ICT.
- Participant 1
An early childhood educator’s personal belief strongly influences their teaching practices, Participant 1 did not share the same views that ICT integration holds high importance in young children’s learning and development as compared to other concept subjects such as Science and Mathematics. This is supported by Kagan (2010) research that new information encountered by early childhood educators are filtered through their existing beliefs.
I find it difficult to use the iMac to even do my lesson plans and complete the online portal for admin work. I am not confident in teaching my students how to use something that I am not an expert in. Most of them already use their parent’s phones or iPad at home anyway.
- Participant 2
Participant 2 is an example of an educator who requires the confidence through necessary trainings for the skills and knowledge of ICT before imparting knowledge to the children in her classroom. She does not incorporate the use of ICT because she was not competent but as she stated in her last sentence, she shows an understanding that her children already have basic knowledge from home on the use of certain ICT devices.
Challenges
Through the data collected from the other two key variables above, it is clear that the challenges that early childhood educators face when incorporating ICT in their classroom mainly stems from factors such as, lack of resources and skills. Through the answers collected from the questionnaire, other factors include time, manpower and space. These are similar factors mentioned in the literature review. It shows that early childhood educators in Singapore faces similar challenges as others from around the world when it comes to ICT integration for young children’s learning and development.
The result of survey at the end of the questionnaire showed how much each factor plays in being a challenge for ICT integration in Singapore’s early childhood education industry:
From the result analysed through the ranking survey question, it is evident that early childhood educators in Singapore lacks the provision of resources for ICT integration for young children’s learning and development. The lack of funding to purchase ICT hardware and/or software came in a close second right before the lack of time and PDC itself. ICT skills was a minor challenge for early childhood educators in Singapore, the underlying reason to this is that most educators in Singapore are already equipped with basic ICT skills since they were required to pass one compulsory ICT module before they are qualified as an L2 teacher.
Limitations
The limitations of this research are the small sample size of participants involved and that parents were unable to participate. As parents play the most important role in children’s learning and development, their views on the matter of ICT integration for young children will help to narrow down if they are part of the challenge that early childhood educators face or not.
Conclusion
Early childhood educators in Singapore faces similar challenges as others from around the world. Despite having the Ministry of Education releasing a framework for ICT integration for young children, it is underutilised by early childhood educators because they were not made aware of its existence by their Centre leaders, mentors or fellow colleagues. There should be more emphasis on the available resources for educators to use when planning a quality ICT integrated curriculum for young children. In response to the main research question, the lack of resources was the highest ranked contributing factor to the challenges early childhood educators faced when integrating ICT into their lessons for children’s holistic development. This could be avoided if Centres receive sufficient funding from stakeholders to not only provide the necessary devices with age-appropriate applications for young children’s learning and development, but to also send early childhood educators for the proper trainings so that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to incorporate ICT use in their lessons.
Other contributing factors to the challenges faced by early childhood educators would be the battle of teaching practices and their personal belief. The majority of early childhood educators in Singapore are competent in ICT integration. However, their personal belief inevitably influences their teaching practices. In the case of one of the participants in this study, it shows that even though resources were provided at the Centre, the educator did not see the importance of ICT integration at preschool level.
In conclusion, ICT is integrated into young children’s learning and development in Singapore to a small extent. When compared to the weight of other learning domains reflected Singapore’s early years curriculum framework, IT is a sub-domain under one of the six. There needs to be more emphasis on the importance of ICT integration so that children are prepared for the digital age in the future. Young children being a native citizen of the digital age should be able to be proud of their skills and knowledge of the technology around them when they mature. The role of education they receive in preschool will lay out the foundation of their interest in learning more about technology, together with its risks and benefits. Early childhood educators have an important role to play in facilitating children’s learning and development based on their interests as well as the environment around them. Living in a first world country during the 21st century, the convenience of technology should not be taken for granted. It has improved the standard of living and as the advancement of technology keeps progressing, young children will grow into the next generation to help the nation keep up to date with the risks and benefits of technology use. Therefore, preparing young children for the digital age should be given more attention and focus than it is receiving now.
Recommendations
Given the data that most educators find the lack of resources and funding the main hurdle in preparing young children for the digital age, the Centre leaders and stakeholders are recommended to review their support structures so that they will be able to cater to the provision of resources, funding, time and professional development courses for educators. It is also crucial that more publicity and awareness is made known to the industry in regards of the importance of ICT integration for young children’s learning and development.
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