Kindergarten Children’s Home Learning During the Pandemic in China

• In Event: Young Children’s Home Learning Environment During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction
The information age has triggered dynamic changes in early learning including activities in the home. How technology is reshaping young children’s learning has drawn great attention especially during the pandemic. A China Charities Aid Foundation for Children survey (2020) found that 48% of parents of children aged 4-12 reported using electronic devices to substitute for direct parent-child interaction. About 52% of parents reported that a fixed amount of time was spent with their children every day, however, only 38% of these (20% of total) said they devoted their full attention at that time. In addition, 57 percent reported children’s learning experiences were impacted by school closure under the pandemic, but the survey provided little detail regarding specific changes.

Research Question
This study investigated home learning resources and activities of families with children 3- to 5-years old in mainland China to address three questions:
RQ1: What learning resources do Chinese families own, including traditional materials (e.g., books) and electronic devices (e.g., smart pads)?
RQ2: How often do parents and children engage in home learning activities, both traditional (e.g., reading books) and digital (e.g., remote learning on a digital device);
RQ3: How have learning resources and activities changed during the pandemic?

Methods
Data sources
Data are from the “3-6 Year-old Children Home Learning Survey During Pandemic in China” conducted by the Preschool Education Committee of the Chinese Society of Education.

Participants
Respondents were 32,372 parents of kindergarten aged children from 34 provinces/municipalities (78% mothers and 20% fathers) with 82% of children enrolled in public kindergartens. Reported nationalities were 83% Han, 7% Tibetan, and 3% Hui.

Instrumentation and Procedure
The China Home Learning Survey was adapted for China from the NIEER 2020 Preschool Learning Activities Survey (Barnett, Jung & Nores, 2020). It has four main components: (1) traditional and digital home learning resources; (2) traditional and digital home learning activities; (3) comparing current status of (1) and (2) with that in 2019; (4) background information (child age and gender, family socio-economic status, family structure, kindergarten types) and support from kindergarten during the pandemic.
The survey was conducted between June 30 and July 28 in mainland China. All surveys were electronically distributed to parents through kindergarten administrators.

Data Analysis
Descriptive analyses will be conducted for 34 main survey questions and 54 sub-questions and for associations of responses with background variables.

Results
Preliminary analyses found most parents reported spending more time in traditional (65%) and digital activities (58%) with their children compared to 2019. Over 54% of the parents reported that their children were taking online courses at the time of survey. For the first half year of 2020, about 36% of parents reported that they used digital educational resources more often than traditional, 29% reported using traditional educational resources more often, and 35% reported using both types of resources equally.
All analyses will be completed by the end of 2020.

Authors

• Jin Huang, East China Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zijia Li, Rutgers University - New Brunswick
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lin Li, East China Normal University
  Presenting Author