Teachers’ use of ICT in the preschool period: A mixed research method

Abstract

The use of technology in preschool teaching practices plays a key role in making the learning process easier and more effective. It is significant to use technology in the preschool period by the teachers when the learning capacity is high. This study aims to investigate the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by teachers in the preschool period with an explanatory sequential design, which is one of the mixed research methods. There were 327 participants in the quantitative stage, and 35 participants in the qualitative stage of the research. Research data were collected in the quantitative part of the study with the “ICT Use in Early Childhood Education Scale”, and in the qualitative part, an interview form consisting of four research questions was used. As a result of the research, it was revealed that teachers’ ICT use was high. According to the variable of teachers’ participation in in-service training, it was determined that the use of ICT created a significant difference in favor of the teachers participating in the training. To support the basic ICT skills, it was determined that participants benefited from enabling ICT use by children, using ICT in the classroom, giving ICT training to children, online applications and coding studies. In order for the children to develop positive attitudes towards ICT, it was revealed that the participants made use of doing activities, giving information, attracting attention and being a role model. It was revealed that the participants used ICT in the teaching process in preparing activities, presenting visual materials, watching videos and online applications. For teachers to support individual learning needs, it was found that they planned individual activities, enabled individual ICT use and performed online sharing.