The purpose of this study was to examine the use of websites by young children at home, the utilization of the Internet among them and their parents and the awareness of parents about young children's online activities in an attempt to help young chil...
The purpose of this study was to examine the use of websites by young children at home, the utilization of the Internet among them and their parents and the awareness of parents about young children's online activities in an attempt to help young children gain appropriate and informative experience through websites.
The research questions were posed as below:
1. What is the state of the use of websites for preschoolers among young children at home?
2. What is the state of the use of the Internet by parents and young children at home as a way to log onto websites for preschoolers?
3. What is the outlook of parents on the use of websites for preschoolers at home?
The subjects in this study were 400 parents whose young children attended eight kindergartens in Yeoungdeungpo-gu and Mapo-gu of Seoul and Ansan and Singal of Gyeonggi province. After a survey was conducted, the responses from 240 parents were gathered, and 235 answer sheets were analyzed. The five answer sheets from the parents who didn't access the Internet were ruled out.
The collected data were encoded and then analyzed with SPSS WIN 11.5 program. To figure out the general characteristics of the subjects, statistical data on frequency and percentage were obtained, and frequency analysis was made to find out about the use of websites by their young children at home, the use of the Internet by the parents and young children, and the view of the parents about their children's online activities.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, most of the young children of the parents investigated went online three or four times a week, in the afternoon after returning from kindergarten, and for about 30 minutes or one hour each. They acquired knowledge on the Internet from their siblings, and decided to access the net with their parents together. Among different Internet sites, They logged the most onto Junior Naver because games were available there. They got in touch with game contents the most, especially learning games rather than amusement ones.
Second, the majority of the parents went online with their young children once or twice a week, on the weekends and for about 30 minutes each. They logged the most onto Junior Naver with their children, as this site was their favorite. Specifically, they contacted game and fairy tale contents the most with their children.
Third, the parents weren't satisfied with Internet sites for preschoolers, and didn't make energetic efforts to find a good site, either. But most of them felt the need for their children's online activities, and as for the reason, they thought young children should access the Internet to acquire a proper computer literacy. However, some didn't consent to that, as they believed young children should be blocked from indecent sites. According to them, the Internet might stem their interaction with others and eventually result in stifling their sociability development.
The parents expected the net to make accurate information they look for accessible, and wanted websites for preschoolers to offer good programs and information on how to take advantage of the Internet at young children's level. In addition, they hoped those sites to deal with information on learning capability and child development.
Their standard of selecting a website for preschoolers was the usefulness of content and whether the development of young children (educability) were taken into account. As for difficulties in taking advantage of the net, there weren't a lot of sites that were appropriate at young children's level, and it's not easy to block a pop-up window containing advertisement for adults in the course of logging onto a website.
The above-mentioned findings showed that the parents felt the need for the Internet in spite of their dissatisfaction with their children's use of it, but that they didn't make efforts to find a good website for preschoolers. In fact, however, few educational or information institutions were concerned with young children's access to the net and provided a workable solution for that. To ensure their satisfaction with the net, a separate organization should be established to verify the content and quality of websites for preschoolers and to offer a feasible countermeasure, and parents should be informed through home reports, parent education or parent-involved instruction about good programs or how to capitalize on computer. They should be given an update to make the most of useful websites.