The purpose of this study was to examine the general tendency of early childhood teachers’ digital literacy, digital play teaching efficacy and the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum and discuss the relations am...
The purpose of this study was to examine the general tendency of early childhood teachers’ digital literacy, digital play teaching efficacy and the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum and discuss the relations among them, and thereby, analyze the effects of their digital literacy and digital play teaching efficacy on the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum. For this purpose, the following research questions were set up.
First, how about general tendency of the early childhood teachers’ digital literacy, digital play teaching efficacy and the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum?
Secondly, how about the relations among early childhood teachers’ digital literacy, digital play teaching efficacy and the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum?
Thirdly, how about the effects of early childhood teachers’ digital literacy and digital play teaching efficacy on the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum?
In order to find the answers to above research questions, the researcher sampled 378 early childhood teachers in charge of 3-5 year-old children at the early childhood education institutes located in Gyeongsangnam-do, Daegu, Seoul, Incheon, and Sejong for a questionnaire survey conducted from Jan. 27 to Mar. 7, 2023. In order to measure subjects’ digital literacy, digital play teaching efficacy and the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum, the researcher used the scales used by the preceding studies by modifying and complementing them. The data collected were processed using the SPSS 27.0 program for frequency, percentage, Cronbach’s α, descriptive statistics analysis, one-way ANOVA, Scheffé-test, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and hierarchical regression analysis.
The results of this study can be summed up as follows:
First, teachers’ digital literacy differed significantly depending on their age, career length, academic background, types of early childhood education institutes, number of digital play and digital related training experience. Digital play teaching efficacy differed significantly depending on types of early childhood education institutes, number of digital play and digital related training experience. The implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum differed significantly depending on their age, types of early childhood education institutes, number of digital play and digital related training experience.
Secondly, there were found some significant positive correlations among teachers’ digital literacy, digital play teaching efficacy and the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum. Namely, the higher their digital literacy and digital play teaching efficacy were, the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum was higher.
Thirdly, it was found that teachers’ digital literacy and digital play teaching efficacy has significant effects on the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum. In other words, the higher the knowledge literacy and computer literacy among the sub-factors of digital literacy, and the higher the digital play efficacy belief and digital play outcome expectation among the sub-factors of digital play teaching efficacy, the level of the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum has increased. Additionally, teacher's age, institutional type, number of digital play, and digital play-related training experience influenced on the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum.
These results suggest that it is effective to increase teachers' digital literacy and digital play teaching efficacy in order to improve the level of the implementation of digital play based on the 2019 revised Nuri curriculum, and to this end, it is necessary to provide digital play related teacher education and establish a digital play environment.