The purpose of this study is to analyze early childhood software education after 2017 to identify trends and suggest future research directions. The followings are research questions selected per the purpose of this study.
1. What are the trends of...
The purpose of this study is to analyze early childhood software education after 2017 to identify trends and suggest future research directions. The followings are research questions selected per the purpose of this study.
1. What are the trends of the studies related to software education in early childhood by periods?
2. What are the trends by research methods related to software education in early childhood?
3. What are the trends by research subjects related to software education in early childhood?
4. What are the trends of keywords, research topic, and trends by effect variables used in studies of software education in early childhood?
4-1. What are the trends by research subjects of studies related to software education in early childhood?
4-2. What are the trends by effect variables of studies related to software education in early childhood?
The analysis data of this study targeted domestic master's and doctoral dissertations related to early childhood software education conducted in Korea from 2017 to September 2023, when the importance of software education emerged. Through the Research Information Sharing Service (RISS), papers including the keywords of ‘software education’, ‘Computational Thinking’, ‘robot education’, ‘unplugged education’, ‘coding education’, and ‘artificial intelligence’ and collected papers necessary for this study. Although the search term was specified, a total of 50 papers were analyzed according to the analysis criteria, including 10 doctoral papers and 40 master's papers, excluding those not related to early childhood software education, those for special early childhood education, and those for which the original text was not provided. All data were calculated using the Microsoft office Excel 2010 program.
The results of this study are summarized as follows. First, as a result of analyzing trends by research period of degree papers related to early childhood software education, the largest number of studies were conducted 13 times (26.0%) in 2022, 10 times (20.0%) in 2019, and 6 times (12.0%) in 2017, and the smallest number of studies were conducted twice (4.0%) in 2018 and three times (6.0%) It was analyzed that research related to early childhood software education has increased since 2020.
Second, as a result of analyzing trends by research method of degree papers related to early childhood software education, 43 studies (68.3%) for early childhoods, 18 studies for teachers (28.6%) and one study for parents (1.6%), showing a significantly higher proportion of studies for early childhoods, especially those related to 5-year-old early childhoods.
Third, as a result of analyzing trends by research subjects of degree papers related to early childhood software education, 30 quantitative studies (60.0%), 18 qualitative studies (36.0%), and two mixed studies (4.0%). It can be seen that quantitative research is being used the most, and qualitative research is also being studied steadily. Mixed studies were analyzed to be limited to a very small percentage.
Fourth, as a result of analyzing trends by research topic and effect variable of degree papers related to early childhood software education, research on curriculum and program development was the most common research topic with 20 cases (37.0%), and research on cognitive development of young children was the most common with 30 cases (58.8%). In addition, a detailed analysis of the effect variables of research related to early childhood software education showed that 11 cases (21.6%) related to the development of problem-solving skills were the most important.