Preschoolers do not share their parents’ beliefs about print and digital media

• In Event: Learning about Literacy through Multimedia

Abstract

Mothers’ beliefs are related to the amount and quality of print literacy activities (Newland et al., 2011) and the amount of digital media exposure (Cingel & Krcmar, 2013) their preschoolers have. Children’s own beliefs also play a role in the way they engage with media: for example, children invest more mental effort in learning from print than videos because they believe learning from print requires mental effort and learning from video occurs without effort (e.g., Bandura, 1977; Salomon, 1981; 1984; Salomon & Leigh, 1984). Therefore, it is important to study both parents’ and children’s beliefs about media when considering how often and how appropriately children use different media.
In prior literature, parents have expressed a preference for print over digital media experiences for their children (Strouse & Ganea, 2017). They appear to hold consistently positive views about children’s exposure to print (Cottone, 2012; Strouse et al., 2019, Weigel et al., 2006) but mixed views about screen exposure (Cingel & Krcmar, 2013; Rideout & Hamel, 2006; Strouse et al., 2019). Preschoolers, on the other hand, have expressed preference for (Richter & Courage, 2017; Strouse et al., 2019) and shown higher levels of engagement with digital over print media (Chiong et al., 2012; Moody et al., 2010; Willoughby et al., 2015).
The purpose of the current study was to provide direct comparisons of parents’ and children’s beliefs about print and digital media. We expand on prior work by exploring a wider variety of beliefs (including usefulness for bonding, independence, choice, imagination, and creativity), and including parallel parent and child items that allow for direct comparisons between parents’ and children’s beliefs.
Ninety 3- to 5-year-old children were provided with media belief statements and asked to respond to each by selecting a photograph of children’s books, a photograph of touchscreen tablets, both photographs, or neither. Parents of 76 of these children completed an online survey about their media beliefs in which they responded to each item on a 7-point Likert scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7).
Parents agreed more strongly that print rather than digital media supported children’s development across all items except one: building skills with digital media. Children selected digital more often than print media for all items except several of the learning items. Spearman’s correlations were used to assess patterns of parent and child agreement or disagreement. Children most strongly disagreed with parents by selecting tablets for using by themselves, using their imagination, and spending time with their favorite characters.
The contingent responsiveness of digital devices may afford opportunities for children to choose and control their own content, potentially promoting engagement and learning (Christakis, 2014; Kucirkova et al., 2017). However, parents’ relatively lower levels of agreement that digital devices offer positive child development experiences may result in them providing fewer opportunities for children to interact with these devices in positive ways. Researchers should work to determine how best to inform parents about opportunities to use digital media with their children in developmentally appropriate ways.

Authors

• Gabrielle A. Strouse, University of South Dakota
  Presenting Author

• Lisa A. Newland, University of South Dakota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel J. Mourlam, University of South Dakota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Steven R. Chesnut, University of South Dakota
  Non-Presenting Author