Emergent digital literacy in Chinese preschoolers: developmental patterns and associated predicators

ABSTRACT

This study examined the emergence of digital literacy in early childhood among 2272 parents with at least one child under age six in central China. Findings revealed that: (1) there was a significant age difference in early digital literacy, with television literacy emerging first, followed by touchscreen, artificial intelligence, and personal computer literacy. Gender differences were only observed in television literacy; (2) the home location, home income, home digital resource (HDR), and parent’s age significantly correlated with young children’s general emergent digital literacy, while family structure, parent’s education, and occupation had significant correlations with some specific emergent digital literacy; HDR played a mediation role in the relationship between the home context factors and preschoolers’ emergent digital literacy. (3) age of the child, family structure, home income, and HDR significantly contributed to predicting preschoolers’emergent digital literacy. Implications for policy-making and parental education are also addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Emergent digital literacy
• young children
• home context
• development pattern
• predictor

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 62277037; the Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Henan Province, China, grant number 2022YB0247; and the Education Science Planning Project of Henan Province, China, grant number 2022BJY030.

Notes on contributors

Simin Cao

Simin Cao is a Ph.D. student at Shanghai Normal University and a lecturer at Xuchang University. Her research areas include early literacy education, early digital education, digital child, and digital parenting.

Chuanmei Dong

Dr Chuanmei Dong is a lecturer at Macquarie University. Her research interest includes early child education, teacher education, digital teacher, digital child, and digital parenting.

Hui Li

Prof. Hui Li is a Chair Professor at the Education University of Hong Kong. He has extensive and focused research interests in developmental cognitive neuroscience, developmental psycholinguistics, early literacy and bilingualism, curriculum and pedagogy, educational policy, school leadership, and teacher education. Since 2021, he has been ranked among the World's Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University. He was also listed by The Australian as the National Leading Researcher (top 1) in the social sciences (social work) field in 2023.