Screen time and preschoolers’ pre-academic and behavioural competence: the moderating role of child characteristics

ABSTRACT

Screen time may have a significant association with children’s development, yet limited research has examined the specific moderating role of family and child characteristics in this relationship. In this study, we investigated the relationship between screen time exposure and children’s development and moderating effects of the family environment (e.g. parental involvement, parenting, and marital adjustment) and child characteristics (e.g. gender, only-child status, urban-rural areas, and left behind) on this relationship. A total of 825 Chinese child–parent dyads participated in the study. The results showed a negative relationship between screen time and children’s language and cognitive skills, self-regulation, and self-efficacy and a positive relationship with problem behaviour. Regarding child characteristics, gender moderated the association between screen time and children’s self-regulation; sibling status and urban-rural areas moderated the association between screen time and children’s problem behaviour. Specifically, screen time had more negative associations with the outcomes of boys, children living in urban areas, and those from only-child households. However, the aspect of the family environment did not facilitate or buffer the relationship. The research verifies and extends the association between screen time and preschoolers’ pre-academic and behavioural competence to parental and children’s factors and holds substantive theoretical and practical implications for policymakers and family education research in China.

KEYWORDS:

• Screen time
• family
• child characteristics
• pre-academic competence
• behavioural competence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study and the preparation of the manuscript were supported by the following grant: (1) A construction path study of psychological service system for poverty alleviated students in southern Xinjiang under the background of rural revitalization (Project number: 21BSH093). The authors of this paper deeply appreciate the support; (2) Strategy research on language talent training and improving in southern Xinjiang-based on word segmentation approach improvement in southern Xinjiang based on word segmentation approach (Project number: NFG2106).

Notes on contributors

Hongbin Xie

Hongbin Xie is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, and also serves as an associate professor at the Sichuan Preschool Educators College in China. His specialization lies in early childhood education, focusing on areas such as teacher-child relationships and the psychological and behavioural development of children.

Cong Liu

Cong Liu is a Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Education, University of Malaya. Her research focuses on parenting, as well as the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural development of preschool children.

Shuang Wang

Shuang Wang is a Ph.D. candidate at East China Normal University. His research focuses on the role of child-adult interactions on the development of self-regulation, emotion, and mathematics in children aged 2-8, especially in the play contexts. He is also interested in improving the ecological validity of measures of classroom quality and child outcomes.

Xiaolong Wang

Xiaolong Wang is a Ph.D. candidate at East China Normal University. His research primarily focuses on bilingual cognition in children. Additionally, he has a keen interest in exploring the interactive development of children's mathematical and linguistic abilities.