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Two worlds collide? Mapping the third space of ICT integration in early
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UNIVERSITY OF OULU P.O. Box 8000 FI-90014 UNIVERSITY OF OULU FINLAND
ACTA UNIVERSITATIS OULUENSIS
University Lecturer Tuomo Glumoff
University Lecturer Santeri Palviainen
Postdoctoral research fellow Sanna Taskila
Professor Olli Vuolteenaho
University Lecturer Veli-Matti Ulvinen
Planning Director Pertti Tikkanen
Professor Jari Juga
University Lecturer Anu Soikkeli
Professor Olli Vuolteenaho
Publications Editor Kirsti Nurkkala
ISBN 978-952-62-1860-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-952-62-1861-8 (PDF)
ISSN 0355-323X (Print)
ISSN 1796-2242 (Online)
UNIVERSITATIS OULUENSIS
ACTA E
SCIENTIAE RERUM
SOCIALIUM
E 178 ACTA Pekka Mertala
OULU 2018
E 178
Pekka Mertala
TWO WORLDS COLLIDE?
MAPPING THE THIRD SPACE OF ICT INTEGRATION
IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF OULU GRADUATE SCHOOL;
UNIVERSITY OF OULU,
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
ACTA UNIVERSITATIS OULUENSIS
E Scientiae Rerum Socialium 178
PEKKA MERTALA
TWO WORLDS COLLIDE?
Mapping the third space of ICT integration in early
childhood education
Academic dissertation to be presented with the assent of
the Doctoral Training Committee of Human Sciences of
the University of Oulu for public defence in Kaljusensali
(KTK112), Linnanmaa, on 27 April 2018, at 12 noon
UNIVERSITY OF OULU, OULU 2018
Copyright © 2018
Acta Univ. Oul. E 178, 2018
Supervised by
Professor Eila Estola
Professor Lasse Lipponen
Reviewed by
Professor Johanna Einarsdóttir
Professor Jackie Marsh
ISBN 978-952-62-1860-1 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-952-62-1861-8 (PDF)
ISSN 0355-323X (Printed)
ISSN 1796-2242 (Online)
Cover Design
Raimo Ahonen
JUVENES PRINT
TAMPERE 2018
Opponent
Professor Kristiina Kumpulainen
Mertala, Pekka, Two worlds collide? Mapping the third space of ICT integration
in early childhood education
University of Oulu Graduate School; University of Oulu, Faculty of Education
Acta Univ. Oul. E 178, 2018
University of Oulu, P.O. Box 8000, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Finland
Abstract
The current stage of early years information and communication technology (ICT) integration
research has been criticized for not paying enough attention to the unique pedagogical features of
early childhood education. Similarly, children’s views about educational use of ICT have been
underrepresented in research. This dissertation study contributes to resolving these gaps in the
literature by exploring children’s ideas and preservice teachers’ beliefs regarding the role of ICT
in early childhood education.
The study consists of two data sets that are reported in three empirical articles. The first study
focused on children’s ideas and their contextual roots. The second study explored preservice
teachers’ beliefs about children and ICT at home. The third study investigated preservice teachers’
perceptions of ICT integration through the frames of teaching, education, and care, referred to as
the EDUCARE approach. In this compilation, the findings of the empirical studies are scrutinized
through the analytical device of third space theory.
The findings suggest that there is a dissonance between the meanings children and preservice
teachers give to ICT use. Children conceptualized ICT use as a leisure activity whereas preservice
teachers approached ICT mainly through learning. The findings also imply that although
EDUCARE has been described as a holistic framework in the context of ICT integration, the
framework acts as a disintegrating vehicle: When ICT integration was approached from the
perspective of teaching, the views were mainly positive. When the perspective was changed to
care, the views were profoundly negative. Care-related concerns were associated with preservice
teachers’ beliefs about children’s use of ICT at home being extensive and unregulated. Another
exaggerated belief was considering children born-competent ICT users.
The results of this study have several implications for early childhood education, as well as
preservice teacher education. To make ICT pedagogy truly meaningful for children, ICT should
be approached as a cultural form, and space should be given for children’s views, values, and
experiences. Additionally, educational technology courses need to pay more attention to aspects
of care, as well as to preservice teachers’ often unrealistic beliefs about children and technology.
Keywords: early childhood education, teachers’ beliefs, technology, third space
Mertala, Pekka, Kahden maailman kohtauspisteessä? Varhaiskasvatuksen
teknologiaintegraation kolmatta tilaa kartoittamassa
Oulun yliopiston tutkijakoulu; Oulun yliopisto, Kasvatustieteiden tiedekunta
Acta Univ. Oul. E 178, 2018
Oulun yliopisto, PL 8000, 90014 Oulun yliopisto
Tiivistelmä
Varhaiskasvatuksen kontekstissa tehty teknologiaintegraatiotutkimus ei ole huomioinut riittäväs-
ti varhaiskasvatuksen pedagogisia erityispiirteitä. Myös lasten näkemykset ovat jääneet vähälle
huomiolle. Tutkimukseni vastaa tähän tarpeeseen selvittämällä lasten ideoita ja lastentarhanopet-
tajaopiskelijoiden uskomuksia tieto- ja viestintäteknologian roolista varhaiskasvatuksessa.
Tutkimusta varten kerättiin kaksi aineistoa ja tulokset on raportoitu kolmessa artikkelissa.
Ensimmäinen osatutkimus keskittyi lasten ideoihin ja niiden mediakulttuurisiin juuriin. Toisessa
osatutkimuksessa selvitettiin opettajaopiskelijoiden uskomuksia siitä, miten lapset käyttävät tie-
to- ja viestintäteknologiaa kotona. Kolmannen osatutkimuksen kohteena oli opetuksen, kasva-
tuksen ja hoidon kehysten (EDUCARE-malli) roolit ja merkitykset opettajaopiskelijoiden tekno-
logiaintegraatiokäsityksissä. Yhteenveto-osiossa tuloksia tarkastellaan kolmannen tilan teorian
kautta.
Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat, että lasten ja opettajaopiskelijoiden tieto- ja viestintätekno-
logialle antavat merkitykset eroavat toisistaan. Lapset suhtautuvat tieto- ja viestintäteknologian
käyttöön viihteenä, mutta opettajaopiskelijat käsitteellistävät sen oppimisen ja opettamisen väli-
neenä. Tulokset osoittavat myös, että vaikka EDUCARE-malli kuvataan eheyttävänä viitekehyk-
senä, teknologiaintegraation tapauksessa sillä on myös hajottava ulottuvuus. Kun teknologiain-
tegraatiota tarkasteltiin opetuskehyksen kautta, näkemykset olivat myönteisiä. Kun näkökulma
vaihtui hoitopainotteiseksi, näkemykset muuttuivat huomattavan kielteisiksi. Hoitokehyksen
kautta tuotetut huolet kumpusivat uskomuksista, että lapset käyttävät liikaa tieto- ja viestintätek-
nologiaa kotona. Toinen yleinen uskomus oli, että lapset ovat syntyjään taitavia tieto- ja viestin-
täteknologian käyttäjiä.
Tutkimuksen tulokset ovat merkityksellisiä sekä varhaiskasvatuksen pedagogiikan että opet-
tajankoulutuksen kannalta. Jotta tieto-ja viestintäteknologiaa hyödyntävä pedagoginen toiminta
on lapsille merkityksellistä, tulee tieto- ja viestintäteknologiaa käsitellä (media)kulttuurisena
ilmiönä ja toiminnassa tulee olla tilaa lasten näkemyksille ja kokemuksille. Opettajankoulutuk-
sessa tulee kiinnittää huomiota hoitokehyksen huomioimiseen sekä opettajaopiskelijoiden usein
epärealistisiin uskomuksiin lapsista ja teknologiasta.
Asiasanat: kolmas tila, tieto- ja viestintäteknologia, uskomukset, varhaiskasvatus
7
Acknowledgements
In April 2013, I was conducting my master degree studies and had enrolled for the
“Contemporary Research Discussion” course. The final meeting of the course was
a get-together lunch, during which I happened to sit opposite our lecturer. At one
point, she asked me whether I knew any preschool teacher who had used digital
technologies with children, as she was looking for a researcher for a forthcoming
development project. I said that I did know someone suitable—me.
That lecturer was Professor Eila Estola, who later became my principal
supervisor. I am deeply grateful to Eila for all the support she has given me during
my postgraduate studies. On several occasions, her trust and faith in my work and
me has been much greater than my own. I would also like to thank my second
supervisor, Professor Lasse Lipponen, whose insightful comments were valuable
when compiling the summary part of my thesis. My sincere gratitude goes to
Professor Kristiina Kumpulainen for agreeing to act as the official opponent for the
public defense of my dissertation. I would also like express thanks to Professor
Johanna Einarsdóttir and Professor Jackie Marsh for reviewing my dissertation, and
Anna-Maija Puroila and Anu Alanko deserve heartfelt thanks for acting as my
follow-up group.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes one to raise a researcher as well. I
have been privileged to be part of several scholarly and non-scholarly communities.
First, I would like to say thanks to the Living Stories research group and the staff
of Early Childhood Education degree program. Special appreciation goes to the
magnificent MAVAKO collective (where does this name come from?): Jaana
Juutinen, Satu Karjalainen, Paula Loukkola, Hennariikka Valppu-Paaso, Virpi
Mettiäinen, Virve Keränen, Riikka Kess, and Jaakko Moilanen. Jaakko, alongside
Jari Laru, also reviewed the first draft of my dissertation in the pre-examination
seminar. Thank you both for your sharp-eyed comments. As my (messy) desk is
located in the premises of Learning and Educational Technology research group
(LET), I would like to thank my current and former roommates Jaana Isohätälä,
Eetu Haataja, and Heikki Kontturi for their companionship. One LET member who
deserves special thanks is Arttu Mykkänen, with whom I studied early childhood
education and whose practical tips were a great source of help when writing the
summary. Special thanks go also to Teemu Hanhela from the Theory and
Philosophy of Education research group for being a good friend as well as a source
of inspiration in pursuing my academic career (we should have coffee more often,
though). Outside of the University of Oulu, I would like to thank Saara Salomaa
8
and Lauri Palsa from the Finnish National Audiovisual Institute for being my media
education partners in crime. Warm thanks go also to my current and former
bandmates from Oiva Väre and Tuulia: Sanna Paitsola, Mervi Tervo, Hannu
Hautanen, Samuli Paitsola, Mikko Alanne, Hannu Tiri, and Petteri Lehtola.
Unfortunately, obtaining a PhD has had no positive impact on my time or my
singing voice. I would like to thank Hannele Karikoski for engaging me in the
wondrous world of early childhood education, and my former colleagues from
Mäntylä-Snellman päiväkoti for showing me how the big words used in the
university can be turned into pedagogical practices.
This work would not have been possible without funding from the Jenny and
Antti Wihuri Foundation, which generously evaluated my research as being worth
two full-year grants. I greatly appreciate this support. I would also like to express
my gratitude to all the children and preservice teachers who participated in the
empirical studies.
The dearest ones are saved for last. First, I would like to thank my parents
Eeva-Liisa and Osmo for their endless support and encouragement. Thanks also go
to my brothers Jukka and Eetu. As for my fabulous children Iitu and Okko—I have
no words to tell you how much I love you. Thus, instead, from now on, I will give
you guys an extra kiss and hug every day—that is a promise. Finally, I would like
to thank Salla for supporting my quest for an academic career. You have endured
my periodical absence of mind, but what is even more important is that, when
needed, you have dragged me away from my thoughts by reminding me (more or
less subtly) that there are things in life much more important than third spaces and
teacher beliefs.
Oulu, February 2018 Pekka Mertala
9
List of original publications
This thesis is based on the following publications, which are referred throughout
the text by their Roman numerals:
I
Mertala, P. (2016). Fun and games: Finnish children’s ideas for the use of digital media
in preschool.
Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 11
(04), 202–226.
https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.1891-943x-2016-04-01
II
Mertala, P. (2017). Wonder children and victimizing parents: Preservice early
childhood teachers’ beliefs about children and technology at home.
Early Child
Development and Care
. Advance online publication.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1324434
III
Mertala, P. (2017). Digital technologies in early childhood education: A frame analysis
of preservice teachers’ perceptions.
Early Child Development and Care
. Advance
online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1372756
10
11
Contents
Abstract
Tiivistelmä
Acknowledgements 7
List of original publications 9
Contents 11
1
Introduction 13
1.1
The importance of studying preservice teachers and children ................ 15
1.2
Structure of the dissertation .................................................................... 18
2
Theoretical framework 19
2.1
Third space theory ................................................................................... 19
2.1.1
The bridging interpretation of the third space .............................. 21
2.1.2
The intersectional interpretation of the third space ...................... 22
2.2
Teachers’ beliefs ...................................................................................... 25
2.2.1
Construction of teachers’ beliefs .................................................. 26
2.2.2
Content of teachers’ beliefs .......................................................... 27
2.3
The third space as a space of beliefs ....................................................... 28
2.3.1
Teachers’ beliefs about children and ICT at home (the first
space) ............................................................................................ 29
2.3.2
Teachers’ beliefs about the essence of early childhood
education (the second space) ........................................................ 31
3
Aims of the study and the research question 35
4
Methodological considerations 37
4.1
Qualitative research as a research methodology ..................................... 37
4.2
Qualitative research methods .................................................................. 39
4.3
Locating the study on the qualitative continuum .................................... 40
5
Methods used in the study 43
5.1
Participants, context, and the research design ......................................... 43
5.1.1
Using drawings to explore children’s ideas .................................. 44
5.1.2
Using written assignments to explore preservice teachers’
beliefs ........................................................................................... 46
5.2
Data analysis ........................................................................................... 48
5.2.1
Analysis of drawings: Monotype mixed analysis ......................... 48
5.2.2
Analysis of the written assignments: Constant
comparative analysis .................................................................... 49
6
Overview of the articles 53
12
6.1
Article I: Fun and games: Finnish children’s ideas for the use of
digital media in preschool ....................................................................... 53
6.2
Article II: Wonder children and victimizing parents: Preservice
early childhood teachers’ beliefs about children and technology
at home .................................................................................................... 54
6.3
Article III: Digital technologies in early childhood education: A
frame analysis of preservice teachers’ perceptions.................................. 54
7
Results: Mapping the third space of ICT integration in early
childhood education 57
7.1
First and second spaces in children’s ideas ............................................. 57
7.1.1
“One could play Mario and listen to good music, like
Robin” .......................................................................................... 60
7.1.2
“It’d be fun to practice reading with a computer” ........................ 61
7.2
First and second spaces in preservice teachers’ beliefs ........................... 62
7.2.1
“We have to be aware of the world they are living in” ................. 63
7.2.2
“My feelings about using ICT are still a bit conflicted” ............... 65
7.3
Discussion of the results .......................................................................... 69
7.3.1
Dissonance between the meanings children and teachers
give to ICT use shaping the third space ........................................ 70
7.3.2
Teachers’ unrealistic beliefs about children and ICT
shaping the third space ................................................................. 71
7.3.3
The multifaceted nature of early childhood education
shapes the third space ................................................................... 73
8
Conclusions 75
8.1
Evaluation of the research ....................................................................... 75
8.2
Implications of the research .................................................................... 77
8.2.1
Implications for future research .................................................... 77
8.2.2
Implications for pedagogical practices of early childhood
education ...................................................................................... 78
8.2.3
Implications for teacher education ................................................ 80
References 83
Original publications 103
13
1 Introduction
Currently, all institutional education fields are expected to integrate information
and communication technology
1
(ICT) in their curricula and pedagogical practices.
This is also the case in early childhood education
2
, and ICT has gradually found its
way into early years’ curricula in several countries (e.g., Bølgan, 2012; Edwards,
2013). Finland is not an exception. The new Finnish National Core Curriculum
Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (Opetushallitus, 2016) and Pre-Primary
Education (Opetushallitus, 2014) are the first normative curricular documents to
demand that children’s ICT competence needs be supported in early childhood
education. The National Core Curriculum Guidelines for Early Childhood
Education guide the education of children under five years old, whereas the
National Core Curriculum Guidelines for Pre-Primary Education guide the
education of six-year-old children during the final year before they enter primary
education. Attendance in early childhood education is optional, and 53% of two-
year-olds, 68% of three-year-olds, 74% of four-year-olds, and 79% of five-year-
olds attend (OECD, 2017). Participation in pre-primary education has been
mandatory since 2015 (Perusopetuslaki 1998, 2014).
The former curricula merely stated that educators should be aware of the new
opportunities offered by technological development and take into account the
benefits and opportunities of ICT in their work (Sosiaali- ja terveysalan tutkimus-
ja kehittämiskeskus, 2005, p. 14), and that the affordances of the learning
environment should support children’s growth to become members of a modern
information society (Opetushallitus, 2010, p. 11). The contrast with the new
curricula is stark. In both curricula, ICT competence is included in transversal
competences which refer to the entity consisting of knowledge, skills, values,
attitudes, and will, as well as the ability to apply the knowledge and skills as
required in a given situation (Opetushallitus, 2014, 2016). More precisely, ICT
competence is named as an important civic skill required in the everyday lives of
1
It has been argued that new digital media can no longer be regarded simply as a matter of “information”
or of “technology” (Buckingham, 2015). The decision to use the term ICT is made on the contextual
basis of it being the term used in Finnish early childhood education curricula (Opetushallitus, 2014,
2016). In this study, ICT is understood in an inclusive manner to reflect the broad range of devices and
software to be experienced by children across home and preschool (Plowman, 2016). The terms
“information and communication technology,” “digital technology,” “technology,” and “digital media”
are used here as synonyms.
2
The term follows Finnish discourse and refers to institutional education for children from 0 to 6 years
old before primary school. The term preschool is used when discussing the premises where early
childhood education is provided.
14
children and families, interactions between people, and participation in society. The
instruction includes familiarization with different ICT devices, services, and games
and that ICT is used to support children’s interactional skills, learning skills, and
the gradual development of writing and reading skills (Opetushallitus, 2014, 2016).
The core argument behind the promotion of educational ICT integration is that
without it, early childhood education fails to meet children’s changing educational
needs which are, to a notable extent, caused by the digitalization of society
3
. This
perspective is well captured in Patrik Hernwall’s (2016, p. 7) statement that “the
changed conditions for children in their life-world calls for a change in the
‘professional content’ of the preschool, if the preschool is to be a contemporary
professional practice of relevance” (see also e.g., Dunn, Grey, Moffett, & Mitchell,
2016; Koivula & Mustola, 2017; Lafton, 2012). Early childhood education
providers have begun to dispel the digital divide between children’s informal and
formal learning environments. For example, the increase in the purchase and use
of touch-screen devices (Blackwell, Wartella, Lauricella, & Robb, 2015) has been
justified with the argument that they are the type of ICT children use at home
(Brown & Englehardt, 2017; Dong & Newman, 2016; Roberts-Holmes, 2014).
In my interpretation, these “assimilative” viewpoints signal professional
uncertainty regarding the role of ICT in early childhood education and the teacher’s
role as an ICT pedagogue. This notion is supported by Susan Edwards, Michael
Henderson, Donna Gronn, Anne Scott, and Moska Mirkhil (2017) who have
pointed out that the arguments which suggest that ICT use in early childhood
education should be the same as that found at home divert our attention from
understanding the nature of the setting and thus, understanding the role of
technology in education and the home. They emphasized that because home and
preschool are different settings the ICT cultures in these two settings are different:
Whereas home ICT use is mostly about leisure, ICT use in preschool is more about
learning.
4
Although I
5
agree with Edwards and her colleagues about the importance
3
Such discourses are not restricted to early childhood education but also exist in the fields of primary
education (e.g., Kupiainen, 2013; Palmgren-Neuvonen, Jaakkola, & Korkeamäki, 2016).
4
In addition, preschool teachers have expressed that the role of ICT should be different in early
childhood education than at home. In these cases, the teachers suggest that due to children’s (presumed)
high ICT use at home, preschool should be a place free of technology use (e.g., Friedrichs-Liesenkötter,
2015; Palaiologou, 2016b).
5
In this dissertation, “I” am a former preschool teacher born in 1982. During the data collection period,
I worked as a project researcher and teacher in the Faculty of Education of University of Oulu. My
interest in third space theory and children’s and teachers’ views about ICT use stemmed from my
experiences as a preschool teacher. Back then, I noticed how many children found it motivational to
write their own stories with a computer and that these stories often contained references from the
15
of building early years ICT pedagogy into the broader pedagogical objectives of
early childhood education (Mertala, 2017; Salomaa & Mertala, in press), merely
acknowledging that home and preschool are two different cultural spaces which
operate according to their own rules is also an insufficient starting point. As the
widespread ICT integration in early childhood education is a new phenomenon,
home is where young children’s first encounters with ICT take place (Chaudron et
al., 2015; Palaiologou, 2016a; Suoninen, 2014). This means that children have ICT-
related experiences, knowledge, skills, views, values, and attitudes, and they do not
gravitate toward ICT use in preschool from a tabula rasa position. In addition, the
experiences children have shape the way they engage in ICT-mediated practices in
early childhood education. In addition, teachers have beliefs about children’s
experiences with ICT at home (e.g., Dong & Newman, 2016; Ihmeideh &
Alkhawaldeh, 2017; Lehtikangas & Mulari, 2016), as well as beliefs about the
essence of early childhood education (e.g., Einarsdóttir, 2003; Niikko & Ugaste,
2012; Sheridan, Williams, Sandberg, & Vuorinen
,
2011). These beliefs affect the
teachers’ pedagogical decisions regarding ICT use.
In this dissertation, I move beyond the discourses of assimilation and
differentiation by applying a framework which acknowledges both—children’s
informal ICT experiences and the unique pedagogical nature of early childhood
education. More precisely, I explore the field of early years ICT integration is
explored through the lenses of preservice teachers
6
and children via analytical
device of third space theory (e.g., Bhabha, 1994; Potter & McDougall, 2017).
1.1 The importance of studying preservice teachers and children
So far, the vast body of teacher research in early years ICT integration has focused
on in-service teachers
7
. One consistent theme in in-service teacher research is
teachers’ reserved attitudes toward implementing digital technologies in early
childhood education practices (e.g., Hernwall 2016; Palaiologou 2016b). It is often
children’s lifeworld outside preschool (i.e., references to media culture, family, and home). For further
discussion see Mertala (2015a).
6
Preservice teacher refers here to teacher candidates who are going through their initial training. As in
the literature review, I use the term “teacher” when I discuss the literature and findings that apply to
pre-service and in-service teachers. I use the terms “preservice teacher” and “in-service teacher” when
I describe these particular groups.
7
Only 10 of the 31 reviewed articles had preservice teachers as participants. Furthermore, four articles
were derived from the same two data sets which means that a total of eight studies were published
between 2010 and 2017
16
assumed that younger “digital native preservice teachers,” in turn, are free of such
hesitation, as they view “computers as just another part of their world and everyday
life” (Zaranis, Oikonomidis, & Linardakis, 2016, p. 204; see also, Lei 2009; Szeto
Cheng, & Hong, 2016), and therefore, their attitudes toward using ICT with
children can be assumed to be more positive. According to Mark Prensky’s (2001,
p. 2) original definition, digital natives—born in the early 1980s and after—are
surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams,
cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age and thus, are native
speakers of the digital language of computers, video games, and the internet. In
Prensky’s (2001, p. 3) view, the older generations—including older in-service
teachers—are “digital immigrants” who, despite their efforts to adapt to the new
digital environment, always retain, to some degree, their “accent,” that is, their foot
in the past because today’s older folk were “socialized” differently from their
children and are now in the process of learning a new language.
8
It is true that unlike their older in-service colleagues, digital technologies,
including personal computers and mobile phones, have been part of preservice
teachers’ lives since their own childhood. However, it appears that the claims about
preservice teachers having a notable positive attitude toward using ICT in early
childhood education are based on a simplistic view of who preservice teachers are.
In such claims, (young) preservice teachers are treated as members of a (fictitious)
homogenous generation and are not recognized as teachers in training, who
interpret and evaluate things from the perspective of a (future) educational
professional. Such claims pay no attention to the fact that preservice teachers also
have deeply held beliefs about teacherhood, children, and the essence of early
childhood education (e.g., Isikoglu, 2008; Richardson, 2003; Stockall & Davis,
2011).
In the Finnish context, early childhood teachers require a bachelor’s degree.
Eligibility can be obtained via two different routes: by studying early childhood
education at university or by studying social sciences and specializing in early
childhood education at a university of applied sciences. Only a university degree
qualifies one to teach in pre-primary education. According to a recent study by the
Finnish National Audiovisual Institute, 66.7% of Finnish university-based early
childhood teacher students felt there was a lack of media education content—
including ICT pedagogy–in their training (Salomaa, Palsa, & Malinen, 2017).
8
For critical perspectives on digital native discourse, see e.g. Paul Kirschner and Pedro De Bruyckere
(2017).
17
Like the preservice teachers, young children are also considered digital natives
(Roberts-Holmes, 2014; Zevenbergen, 2007). In addition, children’s own ideas
about and perceptions of ICT use in early childhood education have seldom been a
topic of scientific interest (Selwyn, Boraschi, & Özkula, 2009). As children are the
ultimate “end users” of ICT in the classroom, more attention must be paid to their
understanding and life-worlds (Buckingham, 2015; Selwyn et al., 2009). The
shortage of child-centered research is also contradictory to the contemporary view
of childhood, where children are understood as knowledgeable and competent
agents, whose views and ideas need to be taken into consideration in the planning
of policies and services (e.g., Alasuutari, Karila, Alila, & Eskelinen, 2014; Corsaro,
2005; Einarsdóttir, 2007). More common are designs where children’s ICT use is
observed without asking specific questions of the children (e.g., Flewitt, Messer, &
Kucirkova, 2015; Petersen, 2015). In addition, studies that used child interviews
focused on children’s reports of what children do with ICT but include no
evaluation of the practices (e.g., Aubrey & Dahl, 2014; McKenney & Voogt, 2010,
cf. Dunn et al., in press; Morgan, 2010). However, when evaluations are asked for,
they are often treated in a somewhat superficial manner: Jill Dunn and her
colleagues. (2016) noted that young primary school students considered the use of
tablet computers at school to be fun. As a conclusion, Dunn et al. (2016) stated that
“the children in this study particularly enjoyed the playful element of learning,”
and thus “the children’s voices in this study validate the playful possibilities in
using tablets in learning” (2016, p. 9) In my view, the authors do not dig deep
enough into the question what does it mean that children consider using tablets
“fun”? “Fun” is a highly subjective and situated concept: To give an example, one
child in Dunn et al. (2016) study commented that using tablets is “more funner than
doing work” and that he “hate it when you have to do hard stuff while you are
waiting to do all the fun stuff” (2016, p. 7). Here, the child uses the concept of “fun”
to compare different activities of which some are more fun than others. His dislike
of “work” and “hard stuff” can refer to the child’s lack of perseverance or that the
non-tablet-based activities in his class are not child-initiated or playful. In addition,
children’s and adults’ views about the playfulness of activities can be very different.
For instance, Alex Morgan (2010) asked 3- to 7-year-old children to evaluate
whether their classroom activities with interactive whiteboards were playful or not.
Unlike the teachers, the children evaluated the activities as not playful. In addition,
having fun doing activities does not necessarily mean that children think that they
are playing (Ólafsdóttir & Einarsdóttir, 2017).
18
1.2 Structure of the dissertation
This dissertation consists of two main parts: the summary and the articles. The
summary presents the introduction, theoretical framework, research aims, and
research questions. It also describes the methodological foundations and the
concrete methods used in the empirical studies. In the results chapter, the findings
of the empirical studies are discussed and compared by scrutinizing them through
the theoretical concept of third space. Finally, it provides an evaluation of the
research and suggests some implications for future research, teacher education, and
the pedagogy of early childhood education. The second part consists of three
articles published in international peer-reviewed journals. All of these have their
own precise research questions or aims, which are introduced in the articles
themselves and presented in the overview of the articles.
19
2 Theoretical framework
The theoretical framework of this dissertation draws from two traditions: third
space theory and teacher belief research. In this chapter, I first present an overview
of both theories and articulate my perspectives in relation to the different
interpretations within these fields of research. Then, I combine these frameworks
as I argue that the third space, to a notable extent, is a space constructed from and
around beliefs.
2.1 Third space theory
The concept of the third space dates back to Homi K. Bhabha’s (1994) view of the
hybrid space of immigrants between new and old cultures. In the broadest sense,
the third space reflects that depending on the social and cultural context, variously
constructed knowledge and discursive resources may be either enablers or limiters
of one’s self-expression and identity (Bhabha, 1994; Moje et al., 2004). The
concept of the third space was first implemented in educational research by literacy
scholars (Gutiérrez, Baquedano
-
López, & Tejeda, 1999). During the 2000s, the
concept has been applied to new-literacy research (e.g., Pahl & Rowsell, 2005), as
well as to (digital) media education (e.g., Rantala, 2009). In addition, scholars
working in the field of blended and seamless learning (Rajala, Kumpulainen,
Hilppö, Paananen, & Lipponen,
2016) and play (Yahya & Wood 2016) have
recently drawn from third space research literature.
Third space theory offers several benefits for theorizing ICT integration. As
argued by John Potter and Julian McDougall (2017, p. 16), third space theory can
be used as an analytical device to “bring together a wide range of parallel but
hitherto previously discrete contemporary discourses of digital media, education
and culture.” Stated differently, third space theory enables multidimensional
research approaches in which the views and experiences of multiple stakeholders
are brought into a negotiation (Moje et al., 2004) at (at least) two levels: Having
views and experiences of different people brought into a negotiation and having
different theoretical and discursive research traditions brought into negotiation. In
the context of the present study, these dimensions are young children and childhood
research and preservice teachers’ and teachers’ beliefs research.
Another advantage of third space theory lies in its links to socio-material
theories (Gourlay, Lanclos, & Oliver, 2015; Gutiérrez, 2008). Socio-materiality
refers to the idea that materiality and sociality are deeply intertwined. Wanda
20
Orlikowski (2007, p. 1437) defined socio-materiality as “the social and the material
are considered to be inextricably related—there is no social that is not also material
and no material that is not also social.” Studies drawing from socio-materiality
explore ways that human and non-human materialities (i.e., objects, artefacts, and
tools) combine to produce particular purposes and particular effects in education
by examining the messy textures woven through different kinds of networks—and
the resulting ambivalences—that intersect in pedagogical processes (Fenwick &
Landri, 2012).
In the context of the present study, the key feature of socio-materiality is the
idea that the way people interact with artefacts—such as digital devices and
content—always reflects their lived experiences from the wider culture (see also
Potter & McDougall, 2017). As ICT integration in early childhood education is a
new phenomenon, home is where young children’s first encounters with ICT take
place. Currently, the ICT used in early childhood education is to a great extent the
same as children use at home (e.g., Chaudron et al., 2015; Dunn et al., 2016). This
means that children have ICT-related experiences, knowledge, skills, views, values,
and attitudes, and they do not gravitate toward ICT use in early childhood education
from a tabula rasa position. In addition, the experiences children have shape the
way they engage in ICT-mediated practices in preschool.
In third space theory, an either/or view is transformed into a both/also point of
view (Zeichner, 2010) as it “resists the binaries of home and [pre]school, of formal
an informal learning, and instead focus on what takes hold as children and youth
move in and across the various settings and contexts of their everyday life”
(Gutiérrez, 2008, pp. 150–151). This allows research to move beyond assimilative
and differentiated conceptions of the settings in which children act regarding use
of digital technologies and understand (pre)school as a dynamic (third) space where
“people, ideas, and practices of different communities meet, collide, and merge”
(Engeström, 2005, p. 46; see also Moje et al., 2004).
In the context of educational studies, the first space usually refers to children’s
informal learning contexts, while the second space refers to institutional education.
The third space, in turn, is where these two domains are brought into a negotiation
(e.g., Pahl & Rowsell, 2005; Rantala, 2009). The concept can refer to a literal space
(i.e., an after-school computer club), a virtual space (i.e., a blog written in school
and at home), or—as in this study—a metaphorical space (Potter & McDougall,
2017; Yahya & Wood, 2016). Further, two different kinds of interpretations of the
(metaphorical) third space can be found in previous research: a bridging space and
an intersectional space.
21
2.1.1 The bridging interpretation of the third space
In this conceptualization, the first and second spaces are represented as distinct,
areas, and the third space acts as a bridge that unites them (e.g., Moje et al., 2004;
Pahl & Rowsell, 2005; Yahya & Wood, 2016). A typical example of a bridging
space is one in which a teacher recognizes things that are important for children in
their informal learning contexts and integrates these things in pedagogical practices
(e.g., Cook 2005). As stated by Leena Rantala (2009, 389), “creating third spaces
could be seen as a pedagogical aim to enhance learning by giving space for out of
school literacies including popular culture and multimodal texts.” An illustrative
case can be found in an ethnographical study by Annukka Lehtikangas and Heta
Mulari (2016). In their article, they described how they observed a teacher
encouraging and helping two boys to compose Ninjago short stories on a computer.
Stories were also illustrated by searching for Ninjago pictures on the internet. In
this example, the children’s first space knowledge (knowledge about Ninjago) is
used to learn conventional academic knowledge (print literacy skills; Moje et al.,
2004; see also Dickie & Shuker, 2014; Dyson, 2003, 2010), and the children and
the teacher are “writing using home and school literacy” which Kate Pahl and
Jennifer Rowsell (2005, p. 75) offered as an archetypical example of third space
pedagogy in their illustration of a bridging third space (see Figure 1).
Fig. 1. The bridging interpretation of the third space (Pahl & Rowsell 2005, p. 65;
published by permission of Sage).
The bridging interpretation, however, is problematic for two reasons. The first is
the unilaterally positive way the third space is represented in the model. Teachers
22
do not always react to children’s first space knowledge in a positive manner. To
give an example, teachers tend to forbid children from performing media-related
role-plays in preschool (Friedrichs-Liesenkötter, 2015; Pennanen, 2009; Ylönen,
2012). In these cases children’s first space knowledge is recognized and reacted to
by the teachers but in a manner in that restricts children’s opportunities for self-
driven self-expression (Moje et al., 2004). This was also the case in Lehtikangas
and Mulari’s (2016) study. The boys were allowed to produce Ninjago stories but
not to role-play Ninjago. It appears that children’s first space experiences are given
value and space only when they can be “pedagogized,” which in this case meant
integrating media-related themes with literacy-supporting practices (storytelling)
approved by the teachers. As argued by Jackie Marsh (2006), teachers’ positive
attitudes tend to relate only to the way in which popular culture texts can be used
to enhance motivation and orient children toward schooled literacy practices.
Popular culture, per se, is seldom seen as a useful literacy practice in its own right.
The second shortcoming is the fundamental assumption that the actualization
of the third space requires that teachers recognize the existence of a noninstitutional
context (the first space) either in accordance with the established practices of the
institutional context (the second space) or create new rules and practices (either
enabling or restricting ones) around them. According to this view, the third space
can emerge only if it is given space by the teachers (Rantala, 2009). However, it is
simply impossible for teachers to be aware of the whole spectrum of first space
knowledge reflected in children’s activities and choices, and children can bring
elements from the first space without teachers being aware of those elements.
Children can also intentionally keep teachers ignorant as children are found to hide
and disguise media-related role-plays they know the teachers would not approve
(e.g., Lehtikangas & Mulari, 2016; Pennanen, 2009).
2.1.2 The intersectional interpretation of the third space
To overcome these problems, in this study the third space is conceptualized as an
intersection of first and second spaces. This interpretation is based on the view that
first space knowledge and identities are always present when people enter the
second space. According to Reijo Kupianen (2013, p. 37), “because children and
young people use different media devices in their everyday life and have their own
special media practices, they bring these practices to [pre]school as well.” In
addition, David Buckingham (2015, p. 22) argued that outside (pre)school, children
engage with ICT not as mere technologies but as cultural forms, and if educators
23
wish to use ICT in (pre)schools, they cannot afford to neglect these experiences.
Thus, drawing on socio-material theories, it can be argued that children’s first space
cultures and experiences are included and shape second space practices regardless
if the teacher recognizes children’s first space–related experiences and knowledge.
An illustrative example can be found in the study by Suzanne Kjällander and
Farzaneh Moinian (2014) in which they reported about a sequence of five children
playing a tablet-based digital game in which they had to feed figures (a circle,
rectangle, triangle, and square) to a “monster” as part of the teacher-initiated
geometry practice. The monster asked for different forms to eat, and the application
provided the children visual and spoken directions on the monster’s forehead and
the form the monster asked for. However, children mainly swiped randomly, and
most often, they offered the monster the wrong form, which the monster refused to
eat. The teacher tried to scaffold the situation by pointing to the correct form,
naming it, and asking the children, “What is it the monster wants to eat?” As an
answer, one of the children pointed to the monster and said, “It is dangerous!” Then
one child swiped her finger in the monster’s eyes. The monster screamed, “Ouch!
Ouch!” Children took turns swiping their fingers in the monster’s eyes and mouth,
and they giggled and laughed (2014, pp. 22–23).
Based on the description of the situation, the children—despite the prompts
given by the application and the teacher—had trouble relating to the game as a
learning task. One reason could simply be a bad game design, but from the
viewpoint of third space theory, that is not the whole story. Playing digital games
has become a common practice among young children in contemporary Western
societies (Chaudron et al., 2015), and in my interpretation, the example also signals
that children are oriented toward playing the game according to the “rules” of
digital gaming they have encultured in the first space. The comment “it is
dangerous” by one of the children and the children’s enthusiasm for irritating the
monster by causing it pain imply that the monster is not considered a “pedagogical
agent
9
” but an antagonist that needs to be defeated: a typical feature in digital games
played by this age group (Chaudron et al., 2015; Suoninen, 2014). Similarly, in a
study of the didactical difficulties of using commercial educational games, Vigdis
Vangsnes, Nils Tore Gram Økland, and Rune Krumsvik (2012) found that when a
teacher tried to start a dialogue by asking questions in order to make children go
more thoroughly into a matter, the children concentrated too much on the game to
9
An animated pedagogical agent is a computerized character (either humanlike or otherwise) designed
to facilitate learning (Craig, Gholson, & Driscoll, 2002).
24
pay attention to the teacher’s meta-didactic intention. The authors concluded that
the children and teacher in a gaming situation have different agendas: The playing
child has a perspective of playing the game, while the teacher has an educational
perspective.
10
Last, I argue that the third space is not a unified space but a set of micro-spaces
that can be harmonious or tension-filled. Similar to other educational institutions,
early childhood education is not a pure rational operating environment but a
polyphonic meeting place of people with varying experiences, emotions, views,
and values (see Elbaz-Luwsich, Moen, & Gudsmundsdottir, 2002, p. 197). This is
not restricted to a variation that exists between teachers and children. Teachers’
11
views, beliefs, and attitudes toward if and how media and ICT should or should not
be implemented in early childhood education vary (e.g., Lynch & Redpath, 2014;
Opetus ja kulttuuriministeriö, 2013). For example, in Marsh’s (2006) study, one
preservice teacher decided to use Pokémon cards to engage children in literacy and
math although Pokémon was banned in the school where the study took place.
Similarly to the children in Suvi Pennanen’s (2009) study, the preservice teacher
had to implement these practices out of sight of (other) teachers, and she
commented that she was afraid of getting caught. Additionally, not all first space
knowledge is treated accordingly by teachers. An illustrative example was
presented in a study by Minna Ruckenstein (2010) in which she described how boys
were banned from bringing hand-held gaming devices to preschool. Girls, however,
were allowed to bring Tamagotchi devices
12
as playing with them was associated
with role-play and nurturing. To sum up, the decision whether the third space is an
enabler or a limiter for children is not fully determined by the policy statements of
(pre)schools but is negotiated repeatedly with different teachers and depends on the
type of first space knowledge the children represent. The intersectional
interpretation is illustrated in Figure 2.
10
These contradictory perspectives are not limited to ICT-mediated practices. Stig Broström (2017, see
also Sandberg et al., 2017) argued that in early childhood education there is often a disconnection
between the motive and the goal in children’s learning activities. Because of this disconnection, children
do not get a direct experience of the meaning of the activity. Therefore, it is crucial that children achieve
an understanding of the reason for the particular action and, in their minds, reflect on the relationship
between the motive and the goal.
11
This applies to children, too: Not all children have similar values and tastes regarding ICT use.
12
A handheld digital pet.
25
Fig. 2. Intersectional interpretation of the third space in the context of ICT integration in
early childhood education.
2.2 Teachers’ beliefs
The research on teachers’ beliefs
13
has a long history of more than 60 years (Ashton
2015: 31), and they are identified as one of the key factors that guide teachers’
decisions and actions in classroom situations (e.g., Fang, 1996; Ertmer, Ottenbreit-
Leftwich, Sadik, Sendurur, & Sendurur, 2012; Stipek, Givvin, Salmon, &
MacGyvers, 2001). Beliefs are also considered to influence how and why teachers
may or may not change their practice to incorporate a new curriculum, adopt new
instructional strategies, or take up new initiatives (Biesta, Priestley, & Robinson,
2015; Levin 2015, p. 50). Thus, it is not a surprise that teachers’ beliefs have been
a regular topic of research in the context of ICT integration (see the reviews in Kim,
Kim, Lee, & Spector, 2013; Tondeur van Braak, Ertmer, & Ottenbreit-Leftwich,
13
As argued by Frank Pajarers (1992), beliefs often “travel in disguise and under alias.” This is also the
case in this dissertation study as in Article III the participants’ views are conceptualized as perceptions
instead of beliefs. However, as the participants were discussing possible situations (what kind of ICT
pedagogy they would carry out when they became in-service teachers and why), these notions can be
also conceptualized as beliefs. The participating preservice teachers cannot know for sure that will be
the way they act, but, that is a premise they felt was true and possible (see Richardson, 2003).
26
2017), and they have even been called “the final frontier” on the way to ICT
integration (Ertmer, 2005, p. 25).
Teachers’ beliefs research can be divided into two main branches: research
about what beliefs are (how they are constructed) and what beliefs are about (the
content of beliefs; Fives & Buehl, 2012). This dissertation focuses on the latter
category—the content of the beliefs. Nevertheless, if one is about to conduct a
research on beliefs, one must also express what one understands by beliefs. In the
following two subchapters, I first articulate where I stand in relation to the question
“what are the beliefs?” Then I explain what the content of the beliefs explored in
this dissertation is and why these particular beliefs matter.
2.2.1 Construction of teachers’ beliefs
Virginia Richardson (1996, 103, 2003, 2) defined beliefs as “psychologically-held
understandings, premises or propositions about the world that are felt to be true.”
This widely applied characterization acts as the definition of beliefs in this
dissertation, too. This said, although Richardson’s (1996, 2003) definition
describes what beliefs are, it says only a little about how they are constructed.
Helenrose Fives and Michelle Buehl (2012) argue that researchers need to be clear
about where they stand in relation to five constructional dimensions of beliefs: 1)
knowledge/belief, 2) implicit/explicit, 3) individual/system, 4) situated/generalized,
and 5) stable/dynamic.
In this dissertation, knowledge and beliefs are understood to be intertwined. To
give an example, teachers have reported that children are more restless on Mondays
than other weekdays in preschool (Friedrich-Liesenkötter, 2015; Puroila & Haho,
2017). This phenomenon is commonly known as “Monday syndrome” in Germany,
and the reason behind children’s restlessness is argued to be that children spend the
weekends in front of the television and do not do other activities that require
physical effort (Friedrich-Liesenkötter, 2015). However, teachers do not have
undeniable knowledge about how children have spent their weekends, and the
conclusions and generalizations about the situation are beliefs.
When it comes to the question whether beliefs are conscious or tacit, I agree
with Fives and Buehl’s (2012) notion that teachers hold implicit and explicit beliefs.
Furthermore, although beliefs are often represented as internal mental structures of
individual teachers, beliefs are not formed in a vacuum but are always shaped
within specific historical and material conditions (Nuttall, Edwards, Mantilla,
Grieshaber, & Wood, 2015). These conditions can refer to broader societal and
27
cultural conditions. In a study of Egyptian science teachers, Nasser Mansour (2008)
identified that mainly teachers’ personal religious beliefs and experiences shaped
the teachers’ beliefs and practices. In addition, the traditions, norms, and
pedagogical characteristics of certain educational domains shape teachers’ beliefs.
The current stage of research on teachers’ beliefs in ICT integration in early
childhood education has been criticized for relying on theories and data collection
tools developed in and for other educational contexts (Blackwell, Lauricella,
Wartella, Robb, & Schomburg, 2013; Plumb & Kautz, 2015). Last, regarding the
question whether beliefs are stable or dynamic, I stand among those who propose
that beliefs are a subject that can (if not easily) be changed. Research conducted in
preservice teacher education suggests that beliefs can be changed if they are
addressed, critically reflected, and evaluated with intentional interventions (e.g.,
Brownlee, Purdie, & Boulton-Lewis, 2001; Isikoglu 2008). In addition, Joanne
Brownlee’s (2003) longitudinal study of changes in primary school teachers’
epistemological beliefs showed that beliefs can change with no intentional external
intervention.
2.2.2 Content of teachers’ beliefs
Teachers are found to hold beliefs about many things, including beliefs about
knowledge, their students, the context in which they work, subject matter, as well
as moral dilemmas and societal issues that affect their work (Biesta et al., 2015;
Fives & Buehl 2012, p. 472; Levin 2015, p. 48). Grounded in an extensive review
of studies, ChanMin Kim et al. (2013) criticized research on teachers’ beliefs in the
ICT integration context for having a narrower perspective on beliefs than in
research on teachers’ beliefs in general. They argued that researchers tend to
examine beliefs associated only with technology and stated that “in order to
understand why technology is integrated differently among teachers, their
fundamental beliefs about what is important in student learning and thus teaching
(regardless of technology use) should be understood” (2013, p. 77).
A review of studies performed in the context of early childhood education
supports the critique as ICT-associated beliefs are not explored in relation to
teachers’ general beliefs (e.g., Blackwell, Lauricella, & Wartella, 2014;
Jimoyiannis & Komis, 2007; Nikolopoulou & Gialamas, 2015). I agree with Kim
et al. (2013) about the importance of expanding the scope to study fundamental
beliefs regarding learning and teaching and how they are related to ICT-related
beliefs. That being said, given the broad spectrum of teachers’ beliefs, focusing on
28
beliefs about learning and teaching fails to recognize the multidimensional and
complex nature of being (and becoming) a teacher. Teachers, regardless the age of
their students, have reported that in addition to teaching the curriculum and
academic skills their task is to take care of the “whole child” (Lasky, 2005) by
addressing aspects of care in their work (e.g., Estola, Erkkilä, & Syrjälä, 2003;
O’Connor, 2008; Vogt, 2002). In other words, teachers do not make decisions based
only on beliefs about on how children learn but based on a more holistic and
complex view of children, teacherhood, and the essence of institutional education.
2.3 The third space as a space of beliefs
In this chapter, I argue that the third space is—to a notable extent—a space of
beliefs. I focus on two themes: Teacher’s beliefs about children’s experiences with
ICT at home (beliefs about children’s first space) and teacher’s beliefs about the
essence of early childhood education or, put differently, what early childhood
education is for and about (beliefs about the second space). These themes are
discussed in separate subchapters. I point out that teachers have beliefs about
children’s experiences with ICT at home and that these beliefs shape the teachers’
pedagogical decisions and practices. Then, I argue that teachers’ general beliefs
about what early childhood education is shapes their disposition toward ICT
integration. Figure 3 presents how teachers’ beliefs are located in the third space
framework.
29
Fig. 3. Locating teachers’ beliefs in the third space framework.
2.3.1 Teachers’ beliefs about children and ICT at home (the first
space)
According to previous research, teachers have positive and negative beliefs
regarding children’s use of ICT at home (e.g., Friedrichs-Liesenkötter, 2015;
Ihmeideh & Alkhawaldeh, 2017). To give an example of positive beliefs, ICT use
at home is believed to provide children skills and knowledge which—in a good
way—distinguish them from previous generations. This viewpoint is well captured
in the following extract from a study by Fathi Ihmeideh and Mustafa Alkhawaldeh
(2017, p. 144):
This generation that we teach is completely different from previous generations
especially our generation when we were their age. We notice how this
generation is far more knowledgeable, mature and aware of life compared to
other generations; this is a result of their excessive use of TDM [technology
and digital media] like televisions, tablets, computers, and Internet.
Not all teachers share this view, and preservice and in-service teachers have
expressed concerns that due to children’s excessive use of ICT at home, preschool
30
should be a technology-free space (Friedrichs-Liesenkötter, 2015; Lehtikangas &
Mulari, 2016). However, it is crucial to acknowledge two things. The first is that
teachers have reported that they are not well aware of children’s actual home-based
ICT experiences (Aubrey & Dahl, 2014; Dong & Newman, 2016), and the
presumptions about children’s ICT use at home are mainly interpretations made
from the themes of children’s role-play (Nuttal et al., 2015; Ylönen, 2012).
However, the assumption that children’s role-play reflects their ICT experiences
precisely is questionable; knowledge about digital culture is cultural and social
capital among children (Aarsand, 2010), and children can rely on secondary sources
to get the information needed to participate in a role-play (Lehtikangas & Mulari,
2016; Salomaa & Mertala, in press). Second, these beliefs are about the youngest
children, whose actions and routines are, to a large extent, determined by their
parents. Thus, beliefs about children’s ICT use in the home are intertwined with
beliefs about parents and home rearing. Put another way, early childhood teachers’
concerns about children’s ICT use means that they assume that parents allow their
children to use too much and/or the wrong kinds of ICT (Friedrichs-Liesenkötter,
2015; Ylönen, 2012). In addition, beliefs about parents’ own ICT use has caused
distress among teachers as they have expressed their concern that children are
denied early language learning opportunities because their carers or parents spend
time texting rather than talking to their children (Flewitt et al., 2015).
Discriminating beliefs about the quality of parenthood are not restricted to ICT-
related questions: Previous research suggests that preservice teachers’ views of
parents are polarized and that teachers do not have much understanding of the
nuances and complexity of being a parent and family life in general (Baum, 2000;
Baum & McMurray-Swartch, 2004). According to Catherine and Joseph Meehan
(2017), many preservice teachers fail to see children’s safety as the prime concern
of all parents and consider that parents perpetrate or harm their children’s growth.
This notion is supported by Angela Baum and Paula McMurray-Swartch (2004)
who claimed that many preservice teachers seem to adopt an “us versus them”
attitude toward work with parents and that they are educating children “in spite” of
their parents, rather than in partnership. Last, preservice teachers are found to
believe that due to their training their knowledge of children is more relevant than
parents’ knowledge (Graue, 2005).
31
2.3.2 Teachers’ beliefs about the essence of early childhood
education (the second space)
In addition to teaching, the aspects of care and education are inseparable parts of
being and becoming a teacher (e.g., Lasky, 2005; Niikko 2004; O’Connor 2008;
Vogt, 2002). This holistic understanding of the role of institutional education is
most prominent in early childhood education, especially in the Nordic context,
where early childhood education is conceptualized through the EDUCARE model
consisting of education, teaching, and care
14
(e.g., Broström, 2006; Onnismaa &
Kalliala, 2010). For example, the Finnish National Core Curriculum Guidelines for
Early Childhood Education (Opetushallitus, 2016, p.21) state that “education,
teaching, and care form a harmonious whole” which “allows a holistic approach to
the child’s growth, development, and learning.”
Teaching, education, and care: Definition of the concepts
Teaching, education, and care are all complex and multidimensional concepts,
which are defined differently in different contexts. As this dissertation is written
from the perspective of Finnish early childhood education, the meaning of the
concepts of teaching, education, and care is opened up in accordance with the
Finnish National Core Curriculum of Early Childhood Education (Opetushallitus,
2016). Teaching here is understood as supporting and promoting children’s learning,
and thus, teaching can be described as a process through which children construct
knowledge and skills (e.g., Broström, 2006; Puroila, 2002). Education, in turn,
refers to decisions about which cultural values, habits, and norms should be
transmitted in early childhood education and which should be shaped and
regenerated (e.g., Biesta et al., 2015; Johansson, Puroila, & Emilson, 2016; Niikko,
2004). When approached as care, the key task of early childhood education is to
meet children’s needs by providing physical care and having a caring attitude
toward children (e.g., Einarsdóttir, 2003; Van Laere & Vandenbroeck, 2018).
Another branch of debate has concentrated on the way these impressions relate
to each other. It has been argued that education and care are inseparable concepts,
14
Other scholars use different concepts to address the same topics. For example, Broström (2006) used
the term “upbringing” and Niikko (2004) the term “socialization” to define what here is referred to as
“education.” Puroila (2002), in turn, used “education” to define what here is referred to as “teaching.”
The decision to use the terms “teaching,” “education,” and “care” is drawn from the terminology of the
Finnish National Core Curriculum (Opetushallitus, 2016).
32
and thus, there are no meaningful distinctions between care and education for
young children (e.g., Sheridan et al., 2011; Smith, 1993). I agree that—especially
at the level of everyday pedagogical practices—making clear-cut distinctions
between these three concepts is artificial as teachers can carry out practices and
discourses in which several roles are intertwined (Einarsdóttir, 2003; Puroila, 2002).
However, although in everyday situations teaching, education, and care are not
fully separable and independent concepts, they still provide a useful framework for
analytical exploration of the different tasks and dimensions of early childhood
education (e.g., Broström, 2006; Salomaa, 2016).
Previous research has also identified that teachers distinguish between teaching,
education, and care in their everyday work. Some teachers consider teaching their
main work (Van Laere & Vandenbroeck, 2018; Ylitapio-Mäntylä, 2009), while
others have emphasized education (Niikko, 2004) and care (Einarsdóttir, 2003;
Ylitapio-Mäntylä, 2009). No unambiguous explanations cause these differences.
One explanatory factor seems to be how early childhood education is provided:
Teachers working in countries with split systems
15
tend to emphasize teaching (Van
Laere & Vandenbroeck, 2018) whereas in countries with integrated systems (such
as Finland), teachers move between different professional roles and expectations
and are better able to see connections between different orientations (e.g.,
Einarsdóttir, 2003; Niikko & Ugaste, 2012). In addition, children’s age appears to
play a role in teachers’ orientations. According to Outi Ylitapio-Mäntylä (2009),
care is a salient frame when teachers work with the youngest children (0–2 years
old), while teaching is emphasized when teachers work with older children,
especially with those in pre-primary education (6 years old).
EDUCARE and ICT integration
Teaching, education, and care also play a role in teachers’ beliefs about ICT
integration. As discussed in Subchapter 2.3.1, some teachers believe that children’s
ICT use at home is excessive, and thus, early childhood education should be a
technology-free space (e.g., Friedrichs-Liesenkötter, 2015; Lehtikangas & Mulari,
2016). Research suggests that such view is justified either through the educational
or caring frame. The educational orientation is apparent in beliefs that due to
excessive ICT use traditional play and outdoor activities no longer are a regular
15
Split system refers to a system in which childcare and early education are provided by different
stakeholders (Moss, 2006).
33
part of young children’s lives at home (e.g., Flewitt et al., 2015; Istenic Starčič,
Cotic, Solomonides, & Volk, 2016). In this case, one of the key tasks of early
childhood education is thought to be to ensure that children get their share of
traditional play and outdoor activities. In other words, teachers react to the
(perceived) changes in children’s (first space) lifeworld (Hernwall, 2016) with
educational actions that can be described as protective mediating (Osborn, Croll,
Broadfoot, Pollard, McNess, & Triggs, 1997). Teachers are protecting children
from unwanted societal change, and they consider curricular ICT integration
pressure to change pedagogical practices in early childhood education (Lindahl &
Folkesson, 2012b).
The caring orientation is apparent in beliefs that children’s ICT use at home is
threatening children’s health. Long hours spent on screens are thought to raise
children’s state of alertness and cause restlessness (Blackwell, 2013; Friedrichs-
Liesenkötter, 2015), as well as cause problems for children’s physical posture (e.g.,
Ihmeideh, 2009; Palaiologou, 2016b). In these cases, the role of early childhood
education is to take care that children have the needed respite from screen-based
activities, as well as enough physical exercise. Some teachers, in turn, consider ICT
use in early childhood education necessary to prepare children for changing society:
58% of the teachers in a study by Nicole Fenty and Elizabeth McKendry Anderson
(2014) agreed with the statement that electronic media will replace printed text
within the next five years, and thus, early childhood education must provide
children the skills needed for full citizenship in the “high tech world” (see also
Izumi-Taylor, Ito, & Gibbins, 2010). Sometimes, preparation means learning basic
operational skills, such as using the mouse or keyboard (Ramírez, Clemente,
Recamán, Martín-Domínguez, & Rodrígue, 2017). At other times, more
sophisticated goals were expressed. For example, one teacher in Helen Knauf’s
(2016) study commented that improving children’s understanding of online safety
and privacy matters is one of the main educational goals for ICT use in her class.
ICT use in early childhood education is also regarded as preparation for children’s
future schooling (Marklund & Dunkels, 2016; Palaiologou, 2016b). Such views are
expressed often by individuals who work in pre-primary education (Lindahl &
Folkesson, 2012a; Mertala 2017) which suggests that the age of children has a role
in teachers’ beliefs about ICT use in early childhood education (see also Dong &
Newman, 2016). ICT use in early childhood education is also understood to have
an affirmative role, as not all children have equal access to computers at home
(Friedrichs-Liesenkötter, 2015).
34
Teachers have also reported beliefs that ICT has a lot to offer for teaching
young children. Although in general beliefs teachers have emphasized learning
socioemotional skills (e.g., Kowalski, Pretti-Frontczak, & Johnson, 2001; Lee,
2006), ICT is most often considered a tool for supporting children’s learning of
academic subjects, namely, literacy and math (e.g., Blackwell, Lauricella, &
Wartella, 2016; Brown & Englehardt, 2017; Ingleby, 2015). The literature offers no
comprehensive account for why ICT is mostly seen as a tool for academic
excellence. One reason could be that the benefits of ICT use are often promoted by
educational authorities (see Tondeur, van Braak, Sang, Voogt, Fisser, & Ottenbreit-
Leftwich, 2012). Ewan Ingleby (2015) described how British governments have
been propagating a pro-technology ideology that “e is the best” for learning, and
he stated that this hegemonic dogma could be identified from teachers’ beliefs
which were profoundly positive. Another possible explanation is that teachers have
been found to use technological affordances as the starting point of their ICT
pedagogical planning (Dong & Newman, 2016; Mertala, 2017). Analyses of
educational mobile applications for young children showed that the supply is
dominated by applications (apps) advertised to promote learning of literacy and
mathematics (Papadakis, Kalogiannakis, & Zaranis, 2018; Vaala, Ly, & Levine,
2015).
35
3 Aims of the study and the research question
The general aim of this dissertation study is to move beyond approaching ICT
integration as either assimilation or differentiation by applying a framework which
acknowledges both—children’s informal ICT experiences and the unique
pedagogical nature of early childhood education. To achieve these aims, I collected
two data sets. One data set came from young children (see Article I) and the other
from preservice teachers (see Articles II and III). Each published article has its own
specific research questions that are reported in the articles. The overarching
research question for this dissertation study is as follows:
What are the key characteristics of the third space of ICT integration in early
childhood education when this space is constructed from children’s ideas and
preservice teachers’ beliefs?
The overarching research question is approached through four sub-questions:
1.
How are informal ICT cultures reflected in children’s ideas for ICT use in early
childhood education?
2.
How are pedagogical cultures of early childhood education reflected in
children’s ideas for ICT use in early childhood education?
3.
What beliefs do preservice teachers have about children’s informal experiences
with ICT, and what is the role of these beliefs in preservice teachers’ beliefs
about the role of ICT in early childhood education?
4.
What beliefs do preservice teachers have about the essence of early childhood
education, and what is the role of these beliefs in preservice teachers’ beliefs
regarding ICT integration?
36
37
4 Methodological considerations
In this chapter, I present an overview of the qualitative research methodology that
guided the research process. I begin by explaining what I understand about
qualitative research methodology. Then, I provide an overview of the qualitative
research methods and locate this dissertation on the continuum of qualitative
research.
4.1 Qualitative research as a research methodology
According to Gert Biesta (2010), a distinction can be made between research that
seeks to explain and research that seeks to understand. The ambition of explanatory
research is to identify causes, factors, or correlations and through this, generate
knowledge that can be used to influence the course of future events. The ambition
of interpretative research, in turn, is to generate understanding through an
articulation of intentions and reasons for action (Biesta, 2010, p. 104). Similar
arguments are used to describe the differences between quantitative and qualitative
research: the former seeks correlations and causalities (Hopkins, 2008) while the
latter aims to discover the essential qualities of a certain phenomenon (Miles,
Huberman, & Saldana, 2013, p. 282). That being said, Biesta’s (2010) arguments
had nothing to with the concrete methods of the research but were about the
epistemological and ontological underpinnings behind the research questions and
methods. In other words, qualitative or interpretative research is more than using
data and methods that are commonly connected to this particular research paradigm.
It is a way to approach the world and its phenomena. The same applies naturally
for quantitative or explanatory research.
An exemplifying way to approach this dichotomy is to look at the ongoing
discussion about the epistemological and methodological questions and challenges
of mixed methods research. According to Joseph Maxwell and Kavina Mittapalli
(2010, p. 148), the main argument for combining qualitative and quantitative
paradigmatic positions and methods in mixed methods research has traditionally
been their complementarity. Using them together allows the researcher to draw
conclusions that would not be possible by using either method alone. The
traditional way of doing mixed methods research is to collect and analyze two kinds
of data: one which is qualitative and one which is quantitative (e.g., Biesta 2010;
Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). Researchers who have applied mixed approaches
have commented that their research acknowledges positivist (quantitative) and
38
constructivist (qualitative) research paradigms (Näykki, 2014, p. 44). Several
scholars, however, have suggested that research should move beyond such a binary
understanding of knowledge and research as this distinction is considered
superficial (e.g., Maxwell & Mittapalli, 2010; Onwuegbuzie & Combs, 2010).
Isadore Newman and Carolyn Benz (1998, 9) have tried to tackle the dichotomy
problem by proposing that instead of treating qualitative and quantitative research
as separate entities they should be understood as a continuum. According to
Newman and Benz (1998, p. 9):
Conceptualizing the dichotomy (using separate and distinct categories of
qualitative and quantitative research) is not consistent with the coherent
philosophy of science and, further, that the notion of a continuum is the only
construct that fits what we know in a scientific sense
.
Newman and Benz’s (1998) argument finds the target especially in the use of
methods and discourses labeled either qualitative or quantitative. As argued by Lee
Sechrest and Souraya Sidani (1995, p. 79), qualitative researchers are frequently
using terms such as “many”, “most”, “several”, never” and so on, which are
fundamentally quantitative. Matthew Miles et al. (2013, p. 282) continue by stating
that a lot of counting goes on in the background when judgements of qualities are
being made. For example, the use of cross-tabulations and frequency counts are
common features in qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, pp.8–9).
According to Biesta (2010, p. 100; see also Dey, 2003) combining numbers and
texts does not raise any particular problems, neither of a philosophical nor of a more
practical nature. We can just see numbers and text as two forms of information and,
more generally, two modes of representation
16
. These notions are supported by
Anthony Onwuegbuzie, John Slate, Nancy Leech, and Kathleen Collins (2007)
who argue that mixed method research can be carried out by using only types of
data that considered as qualitative. Also Julianne Cheek (2011, p. 264) contends
that mixed methods can be considered as one form of qualitative inquiry. This
means, that even if the researcher uses methods and discourses that are linked to
quantitative research, this does not mean that he or she is moving between different
and conflicting paradigms. If mixed methods are used within qualitative research,
then the quantitative analyses are based on and interpreted from the same
epistemological and ontological foundations and frames as the qualitative analyses.
In short, the researcher mixes methods (i.e., data collection and analysis
16
For example, for a sports fan, “0-0” and “goalless draw” are such representations.
39
procedures), not methodologies (i.e., epistemological and ontological presumptions;
see Twining, Heller, Nussbaum, & Tsai, 2017).
4.2 Qualitative research methods
Although there is no one generally accepted definition of what is meant by
qualitative research (e.g., Denzin & Lincoln, 2011; Erickson, 2011, Potter, 1996),
Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (2011, p. 3) argued that an initial, generic
description can be offered:
Qualitative research is situated activity that locates observer in the world.
Qualitative research consists of a set of interpretative material practices that
make the world visible … They turn the world into a series of representations,
including field notes, interviews, conversations, photographs, recordings, and
memos to the self. At this point qualitative research involves an interpretative,
naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative researchers
study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense or interpret
phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.
Qualitative data is often collected as field work, and the researcher is the
instrument (Patton 2002, p. 4, 14). This means that the researcher’s subjectivity is
intimately involved in the research process (Ellingson, 2011; Ratner, 2002).
Qualitative researchers use various data collection methods, including observation
(e.g., Angrosino & Rosenberg, 2011), interviews (e.g., Kvale & Brinkman, 2009),
field notes, photographs, and drawings (e.g., Einarsdóttir, Dockett, & Perry, 2009).
Data is not understood to capture the world around us as such but subjective
representations of it (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 415). Thus, instead of focusing
on sample size, qualitative researchers are more interested in the richness and
thickness of the data. Richness refers to the quality of the data and thickness to the
quantity of the data. Patricia Fusch and Lawrence Ness (2015, p. 1409) stated,
“thick data is a lot of data; rich data is many-layered, intricate, detailed, nuanced
and more.” Good qualitative data is rich and thick (Fusch & Ness, 2015). It is rich
is enough to be able to represent the complexity of a socially constructed reality
and thick enough for the researcher to make comparisons and form categories. Such
data can be provided even by only one participant if he or she is selected
purposefully (Donmoyer 2000, p. 48). Purposeful means that the information the
participant is able to provide is important for and in line with the central purpose
of the inquiry (Patton, 2002, p. 230).
40
As there are no clear-cut rules for how to collect qualitative data, no universal
rules for analyzing it exist. Traditionally, the two main approaches for data analysis
are deductive (theory driven) and inductive (data-driven analysis). Deductive
analysis is used when the purpose of the study is to test the theory, and inductive
analysis is used when theoretical categories are derived from the data (e.g., Elo &
Kyngäs, 2008; Twining et al., 2017). Due to the interpretative nature, inductive
approaches are more common in qualitative inquiries (Pope, Ziebland, & Mays,
2000). That being said, several scholars have challenged the idea of whether
reasoning can be purely inductive. It has been stated that reasoning never takes
place in a theoretical vacuum (e.g., Chenitz & Swanson, 1986; Saaranen-
Kauppinen & Puusniekka, 2006), but the theoretical stance can often be implicit
rather than explicit (Braun & Clarke, 2006). To overcome the inductive-deductive
debate, a third approach, abductive analysis, was introduced. The abductive
approach discards the idea that the researcher’s observations and interpretations can
be purely inductive and acknowledges that a guiding theoretical thread is always
included in the analysis (Grönfors, 2011; Saaranen-Kauppinen & Puusniekka,
2006). However, unlike in deductive analysis, following a theoretical thread does
not mean that the theory is taken as given or that the role of the analysis is simply
to test the theory. Instead, in abductive analysis, the researcher moves between and
combines inductive reasoning and existing theoretical models to open up new ways
of theorizing the phenomenon under investigation (Dey, 2003, pp. 90-92; Suddaby,
2006; Tuomi & Sarajärvi, 2012, p. 97).
4.3 Locating the study on the qualitative continuum
As discussed in the previous chapter, many different ways to approach and to
practically carry out qualitative research exist. Laura Ellingson (2011) suggested
that different qualitative research approaches can be better understood by placing
them on a continuum. Drawing from the work of W. James Potter (1996), she (2011,
p. 596) argued that,
a continuum approach to mapping the field of qualitative methodology
constructs a nuanced range—or broad spectrum—of possibilities to describe
what traditionally have been socially constructed as dichotomies such as
art/science, hard/soft, and qualitative/quantitative
.
On the “far right” of the continuum, the research includes the use of passive
voice, an attempt to discover an objective truth that is “out there,” deductive
41
analysis methods, presentation of the researcher as irrelevant to the results, and
research reports that rely on tables, figures frequency counts, and conventional
academic layouts. On the “far left” of the continuum, the research includes the use
of first-person voice, an attempt to construct personal truths, art-based methods, the
researcher is more or as much the focus as the other participants, and use of
experimental forms of research reports. In “the middle” are studies that use first-
person voice, explore how participants understand their world, focus more on
participants than on the researcher but acknowledge the subjectivity of the
researcher’s interpretations, use a vast array of data collection and analysis methods,
and rely on traditional methods of reporting the research (Ellingson, 2009, 2011).
I locate this dissertation on the middle of Ellingson’s (2009, 2011) qualitative
continuum. My goal is not to discover an objective truth or to explain reality “out
there” but to make sense and interpret phenomena in terms of the meanings people
bring to them (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011, p. 3). Participants are the main focus, but
I understand that my background and positionality affect the research questions and
interpretations. The researcher’s subjectivity is appointed by using a first-person
voice instead of passive voice which connotes objectivity. The types of data—
drawings and interviews (see Article I) and written assignments (see Articles II and
III)—are all typical in qualitative inquiry (Patton, 2002) but are more on the
traditional side than on the experimental side of the forms of qualitative data. The
abductive approach for analysis (Dey, 2003; Grönfors, 2011) and the particular
analysis methods used in individual studies—qualitative-oriented monotype mixed
analysis (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2007) in Article I and constant comparative analysis
(e.g., Fram, 2013; Suddaby, 2006) in Articles II and III—are interpretative rather
than explanatory.
42
43
5 Methods used in the study
In this chapter, I provide an account of the research methods, including an
introduction to the participants, a description of the research contexts, as well as
reports of the data collection and analysis. An overview of the methods used in the
empirical studies is provided in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of study methods.
Description
A
rticle I
A
rticle II & III
Participants 5- to 6-year-old children (N=103) 1st-year preservice teachers (N=38)
Research context Development project taking place in
five preschools
Compulsory educational technology
course
A
im Explore children’s ideas for ICT use
in early childhood education
Explore preservice teachers’ beliefs
about children and ICT at home (Article
II) and the role of ICT in early childhood
education (Article III)
Data Drawings and interviews (103
pages)
Written pre-course assignments (72
pages)
A
nalysis method Monotype mixed analysis Constant comparative method
5.1 Participants, context, and the research design
The data used in the dissertation was collected in two contexts. The data used in
Article I was collected from 5- to 6-year-old children (N=103 [49 girls and 54 boys])
at five kindergarten-based pre-primary groups in a city in northern Finland. The
groups participated in a development project funded by the Finnish National Board
of Education. The aim of the project was to explore the pedagogical possibilities of
affordable ICT equipment that could later be implemented in other settings. The
data collection took place in October 2013, during the orientation period when ideas
for the types and uses of ICT were gathered from children, their families, and
preschool personnel and before any new ICT devices were purchased. This
approach served two purposes. First, the ideas and views of all the stakeholders
were asked to be taken into consideration to avoid the possibility of a technical
intervention in which the developmental goals and the methods for reaching them
would be defined by actors outside the learning community (see Carr & Kemmis,
1986). Second, the development project was understood as an important
opportunity to perform research in ICT integration in early childhood education,
which, at the time, was little studied at the national level.
44
Data for Articles II and III was gathered from first-year preservice teachers in
a Finnish university-based early childhood teacher training program. The data
collection took place during the middle of the respondents’ first semester in
November 2014 when the participants were attending an educational technology
course in which I was the teacher. A total of 38 students participated in this study.
Thirty-five were female, and three were male. The youngest participant was 18
years old, the oldest 37 years old, and the mean age was 23. The value of studying
first-year teacher students is that beliefs that have arisen before training are found
to play a substantial role in determining whether preservice teachers adopt or reject
new information and practices during their training (e.g., Levin, 2015; Richardson,
2003), because people tend to assimilate new information based on their existing
beliefs (Nespor, 1987).
5.1.1 Using drawings to explore children’s ideas
The research on children’s drawing has a long tradition of analysis through graphic,
perceptive, and psychological lenses. However, recently, drawing has been
recognized as a form of narration and knowledge construction (Einarsdóttir et al.,
2009). According to Angela Anning and Kathy Ring (2004, p. x; see also
Einarsdóttir, 2007), children’s drawings are a useable tool for knowing what
children are telling us and give us adults a chance to take a glance at the children’s
thinking and understanding of the world. However, drawings are not
representations of the world as such. In Anne Haas Dyson’s (2003) study, children
drew themselves visiting their classmates’ homes, but according to the children’s
parents, they had not ever done so. In the drawings, the children were not recalling
past experiences but symbolizing their friendship. Drawings also reflect the societal,
cultural and communicational systems around children and children often include
the names and logos of popular brands and the characters of favorite games and TV
shows, as well in their drawings (Selwyn et al., 2009; Ylönen, 2012).
Using drawing as a data collection method can be described as child-centered
as drawing is an enjoyable and beneficial activity for most children (Burkit, Watling,
& Murray, 2011; Horn & Giacobbe, 2007, 52; Oskarsdottir & Einarsdóttir, 2017)
17
and a natural form of action in early childhood education (Kress & vanLeeuwen,
17
This applies best for the youngest children. As noted by Samantha Punch (2002, p. 331), “particularly
older children, are more inhibited by a lack of artistic competence, and may not consider drawing to be
a fun method.”
45
2006, 16). In past years, children’s drawings have been used to explore various
topics, including experiences of sadness (Steyn & Moen, 2017), perceptions of
consumption and friendship (Lundby, 2013), knowledge of the human body
(Driessnack & Gallo, 2013), valued school experiences (Steerlasky, 2017), and
representations of nature (Ulker, 2012). Children are often interviewed based on
what they have drawn. According to Johanna Einarsdóttir (2007; see also Punch,
2002), children’s narratives and interpretations of their drawings can give a better
picture than adults’ interpretations of the drawings. The strength of combining
visual and verbal narration is that by using the drawing—or some other visual
medium—as a mediating tool, different parties are better able to understand each
other’s thinking by creating a transitional space in which their thoughts and ideas
can be externalized into a concrete form (Horn & Giacobbe, 2007; Lipponen,
Rajala, Hilppö, & Paananen 2016; Prosser, 2011; Spyrou, 2011).
In the present study, I applied the procedure called “the draw and tell
conversation method” (DTC) (Driessnack, 2006; see also Prosser, 2011, pp. 491–
492) to collect children’s ideas. In DTC, children are first given a specific art
directive that reflects the study’s purpose. When the drawing is ready, a
conversation facilitated by an interview guide is carried out.
18
The context in which
the drawings are made and the audience to whom they will be shown are
meaningful for the children’s drawing experience (Burkitt et al., 2011; Einarsdóttir
et al., 2009). This applies to the physical context (Patton, 2002, p. 280; Punch, 2002)
and the socioemotional context (Burkitt, et al., 2011; Steyn & Moen, 2017). Table
2 presents the types of equipment found on the premises. The listing is based on
reports of the teachers and my observations.
Table 2. ICT devices found on the premises of the participating groups.
Group Type of equipment found on the group’s premises
Group 1 Laptop and smartphone for staff; desktop computer for children (not in use due to technical
problems); digital camera and CD player for staff and children
Group 2 Desktop computer, smartphone, document camera, and canvas for staff; two CD players for
staff and children
Group 3 Laptop, smartphone, projector, and CD player for staff; interactive whiteboard for staff and
children (not in use due to technical problems)
18
In the present study, no recordings were made, but the children’s comments were written down on the
drawings, which is a common method in studies that use children’s drawings as data (e.g., Einarsdóttir
et al., 2009; Prosser, 2011, Steyn & Moen, 2017).
46
Group Type of equipment found on the group’s premises
Group 4 Laptop, smartphone document camera, and projector for staff; interactive whiteboard for staff
and children
Group 5 Desktop computer and smartphone for staff; desktop computer for children (not in use due to
technical problems)
Children tend to lack experience communicating directly with unfamiliar adults
(Punch, 2002). To provide the children a safe and familiar environment, the data
collection was carried out by the teachers and nurses (Steyn & Moen, 2017) who
were provided written instruction for how to introduce the task to the children and
how to carry out the interview. In summary, the children were asked to draw what
kind of ICT they would like to have in preschool and what should be done with it.
After the drawing was done, the children were interviewed. The instructions are
reported in detail in Article I. Children were also informed about the forthcoming
development project and that the ideas they drew and discussed would be taken into
consideration in planning the project activities.
5.1.2 Using written assignments to explore preservice teachers’
beliefs
Interviews are perhaps the most frequently used data collection method in
qualitative research. In the context of the present study, the decision to use written
assignments instead of research interviews was based on the nature of the
relationship between the participants and me. It is important to acknowledge that I
was not an “outsider researcher” but the teacher of the participants’ upcoming
course. As the knowledge produced in research interviews is constructed between
the interviewer and the interviewee (Kvale & Brinkman, 2009, p. 2), their
relationship can have an impact on the interviewees’ answers (Anyan, 2013;
Karnieli-Miller, Strier, & Pessach, 2009). The teacher–student relationship contains
power asymmetry in favor of the teacher (Jamieson & Thomas, 1974; Muller, 2001).
To give an example, when I conducted the practitioner interviews in the
development project in which children’s data was collected (and in which I worked
as an in-service teacher educator), several participants found it difficult to discuss
the possible shortcomings of the project (Mertala, 2017). By remaining silent about
their doubts, the participating teachers were “serving up” what they thought was
wanted from them in order not to appear as challenging partners (see McCracken,
1988, p. 27). In short, I was concerned that the students would hold back their
47
critical views if the data were collected via interviews. I reasoned that the use of
written assignments would allow the participants to express their views more freely
than in research interviews.
In general, written assignments can be considered a good method for gathering
rich data. It allows the writer produce the data when he or she has the right mindset
for it. In addition, if the schedule for returning the texts is long enough (in this case,
the participants had two weeks to provide the assignment), the writer has an
opportunity to work with the text in a process-oriented manner which includes
writing, reading, and re-writing phases. This enables the writers to reflect on what
they want to say and how they want to present their case. Written assignments have
been frequently used as research data in preservice teacher research. Mats Lindahl
and Anne-Mari Folkesson (2012a, 2012b) used written assignments to explore
preservice teachers’ arguments for and against embedding computers in preschool
practice. Beverly Funkhouser and Chrystalla Mouza (2013), in turn, analyzed
preservice teachers’ written assignments to investigate their initial beliefs and ideas
regarding the role of technology in teaching and learning. In addition to technology-
related topics, studies using written assignments have addressed themes such as
preservice teachers’ beliefs about children and childhood (Avgitidou, Pnevmatikos,
& Likomitrou, 2013).
In the present study, the preservice teachers were asked to write a free-form
essay in which they discussed their views, beliefs, and attitudes regarding young
children and technology as a pre-course assignment. The assignment was
distributed via email before the first contact lesson, and the preservice teachers
were informed that the aim of the writing task was to orient them to the course by
having them reflect on their beliefs and attitudes toward ICT use in early childhood
education. The task was not graded. In the instructions, the students were asked to
write down what kinds of experiences they believe children have with ICT, and
what the role of ICT should be in early childhood education. No examples of what
was meant by ICT were given. A written permission to use the assignments as
research data was sought after the course, as opposed to beforehand, to avoid
influencing the content (de Oliveira Nascimento & Knobel, 2017). This policy also
made it possible for the students to get to know me better before deciding whether
to give the permission or not. Fifty-seven students from three different classes
participated in the course. Due to schedule-related issues, permission to use the
assignments as research data was asked of students from only two classes, all of
whom gave their permission. The data comprised 72 pages.
48
5.2 Data analysis
In this chapter, I present the data analysis procedures. The data analysis was guided
by the principles of qualitative research methodology which means that the
quantitative methods used (i.e., counting frequency effect sizes; see Onwuegbuzie,
2003) were also based on and interpreted from the same epistemological and
ontological foundations and frames as the qualitative analyses.
5.2.1 Analysis of drawings: Monotype mixed analysis
The children’s drawings were analyzed via monotype mixed analysis (MMA). In
MMA, the data—be it qualitative or quantitative—is analyzed by using qualitative
and quantitative methods. The use of the method requires that the qualitative data
is altered into a form that can be analyzed statistically and that quantitative data is
transformed into a form that can be analyzed qualitatively (Onwuegbuzie et al.,
2007). This mixing can be characterized as a combination of measurement and
interpretation (Biesta 2010, p. 101) which allows rich and comprehensive views to
be constructed of the phenomena under investigation (Puntambekar, 2013).
Although traditional mixed-methods research has been criticized for valuing the
quantitative part over the qualitative part (Creswell, 2011; Ellingson, 2011), in
MMA the research questions and the primary nature of the data determine the order
of the analysis process and the way the research is reported. If the research aim is
interpretative and the data is qualitative, then qualitative analysis is the one to begin
with and the one that has the leading role in the report (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2007).
In the context of the present study, the initial research interest was to explore
how first space and second space cultures are reflected in children’s ideas regarding
the use of ICT in early childhood education (i.e., how media cultural aspects and
the pedagogical practices of early childhood education are reflected in children’s
ideas). Thus, the fundamental research interest can be articulated to be
interpretative. Similarly, the data used in Article I (drawings and interviews) is
commonly described as qualitative (Biesta, 2010; Patton, 2002). Following the
principles of qualitative research methodology, children’s drawings (and interviews)
were not believed to provide straightforward and unambiguous information about
children’s experiences (see Dyson, 2003) but to reflect the broader (digital) media
cultural sphere in which the children live. For instance, references to certain digital
games, movies, or programs are not straightforwardly assumed to signal that
children have played these games or watched these programs. They are considered
49
forms of digital culture in which the children are interested and which are
considered good and cool among the children’s peers (Aarsand, 2010; Lehtikangas
& Mulari, 2016; Salomaa & Mertala, in press). Stated differently, children’s ideas
were not thought to necessarily draw from actual first-hand experiences but from
children’s observations, as well as their values and tastes regarding ICT use.
In the present study, transforming the data meant quantifying the occurrence of
how often different activities, devices, and (digital) media cultural references were
drawn and mentioned (Selwyn et al., 2009). The purpose was to achieve an overall
picture of which activities and devices, as well as first and second space related
themes, were the most frequently drawn and mentioned among the whole
population of participants. These frequency counts were then converted to
percentages to calculate the frequency effect size (Onwuegbuzie, 2003). The
interpretative analysis was carried out to examine the holistic impression of the
drawings by attempting to locate the cultural aspects reflected in the drawings
(Anning & Ring, 2004; see also Selwyn et al., 2009). The second objective of the
interpretative analysis was to capture the diversity of the data by providing a space
for ideas from individual children.
5.2.2 Analysis of the written assignments: Constant comparative
analysis
An abductive approach was used as the guiding principle of data analysis in Articles
II and III. The theoretical thread in Article II was the representations of the “child
computer user” (Selwyn, 2003), and the (mainly negative) representations of
parenthood identified in existing literature (e.g., Alliance for Childhood, 2004;
Baum & McMurray-Schwarz, 2004; Meehan & Meehan, 2017). In Article III, the
main theoretical thread was the different frames—teaching, education, and care—
that provide different orientations for early childhood education (e.g., Broström,
2006; Einarsdóttir, 2003; Salomaa, 2016).
In abductive analysis, the researcher moves between inductive and deductive
reasoning while practicing the constant comparative analysis method (CCAM;
Suddaby, 2006). The CCAM is often considered synonymous with grounded theory
research (Fram, 2013). However, Mary O’Connor, Ellen Netting, and Lori Thomas.
(2008, p. 41) argued that “constant comparison, the data analysis method, does not
in and of itself constitute a grounded theory design.” In other words, the CCAM
can be considered “a set of procedures and techniques for gathering and analyzing
the data” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, 3), without aiming to constitute a substantive
50
theory, which is the aim in grounded theory research (O’Connor et al., 2008). This
approach allows researchers to take a pragmatic stance toward the CCAM. The
research questions asked (Fram, 2013) and the kind of material involved (Boeije,
2002) determine the number of steps taken and the types of comparisons performed
during the analysis process.
Analysis for Article II
The analysis process consisted of three phases. The first phase concentrated on
beliefs about children, the second on beliefs about parents, and the third on the
relationship between these beliefs and participants’ views of how ICT should or
should not be used in early childhood education. The three phases were conjoined
rather than being completely separate. As beliefs about children were understood
to be intertwined with beliefs about parents and vice versa, the categories of
children constructed during the first phase were not understood to be necessarily
the final ones but a subject to evolve when these representations were compared
with those about parents (see Corbin & Strauss, 1990).
Initially, I went through all the data and sought references to beliefs about
children’s experiences with ICT at home. I then categorized the extracts by using
Neil Selwyn’s (2003) representations of “child the computer user” as a guiding
framework. At this point, I replaced the term “computer” with the term
“technology,” which better captured the diversity of the technologies represented
in the essays. Following the first phase, I had three preliminary categories of
representations of children:
–
the naturally competent child technology user,
–
the victimized child technology user, and
–
the needy child technology user.
In the second phase, I examined what kinds of representations of parents and
parenting were connected to the representations of children. During this read-
through, I also noticed how several students wrote that parents’ own technology
use can be harmful for children. As in these cases, children were represented as
victims but not as technology users, I omitted the words “technology user” from
the representation categories of children. In conclusion, I identified three categories
of child–parent representations through the first two analysis phases:
–
the naturally competent children of invisible parents,
51
–
the victimized children of victimizing parents, and
–
the needy children of disadvantaged parents.
In the third phase, I again went through all the data to examine the relationships
between preservice teachers’ beliefs about children, parents, and technology and
the teachers’ views about the role of technology in early childhood education.
Analysis for Article III
In this study, the constant comparison process consisted of three phases and took
place at three levels (Boeije, 2002):
–
comparison of the theory and data,
–
comparison within data, and
–
comparison of the data and theory.
Initially, I went through all the data, focusing on material that discussed why and
how technology should or should not be used in early childhood education. Then I
scrutinized these extracts through the analytical framework of teaching, education,
and care. My main interest when carrying out the analysis was not only what the
participants were writing about but also from what perspective they were writing
(see also Puroila, 2002). I gave special attention to the question, who are the
children the participants are writing about (i.e., how old are they, what are their
developmental needs, and do they have access to technology at home)? With this
analytical query, I aimed to identify how participants’ perceptions of children relate
to the frame through which they approach technology integration. In other words,
the objective was to identify for whom the technology integration was thought to
be beneficial and for whom it was not, and to establish how these perceptions are
related to teaching, education, and care. I also identified any personal experiences
linked to these views, to establish if and how they shape preservice teachers’ beliefs
about ICT integration. In other words, I further compared the technology-related
extracts I had highlighted and scrutinized in the first phase to the whole data from
each participant, and I compared interpretations based on the data from individual
participants with each other to identify (possible) patterns in the whole data set
(comparison within data). Last, to better identify how participants’ beliefs relate to
early childhood education traditions, as well as to the broader discourses promoting
or opposing ICT integration, I compared the data-driven interpretations to
theoretical literature (comparison of data and theory).
52
53
6 Overview of the articles
The empirical body of this dissertation constitutes three articles all of which I was
the sole author. Table 3 summarizes the topics of each article, and in the following
overview, I offer a brief introduction of each article.
Table 3. Focus of the articles.
A
rticle The main topic
I How are informal ICT cultures and pedagogical cultures of early childhood education reflected
in children’s ideas for ICT use in early childhood education?
II Preservice teachers’ beliefs about children and ICT at home
III Preservice teachers’ beliefs about the essence of early childhood education and the role of
ICT in it
6.1 Article I: Fun and games: Finnish children’s ideas for the use of
digital media in preschool
In this study, I analyzed drawings from and interviews with 5- to 6-year-old
children (N=103) to explore their ideas for the use of ICT in early childhood
education. As the participating groups had no (or only a little) existing ICT, the
term “idea” refers to “what if” questions and the children’s thoughts about the
future use of ICT. The second research interest was to examine how different
contextual and cultural aspects (including, but not restricted to, the children’s
experiences with ICT at home) were reflected in the children’s ideas. I analyzed the
data with monotype mixed analysis (Onwuegbuzie et al., 2007).
Only a small number of children linked ICT use in existing preschool practices,
that is, using ICT for learning purposes or for documenting their doings in
preschool. More common were ideas in which children exported informal digital
practices—that is, playing digital games or watching movies—to the preschool
context. The children’s ideas included a notable number of (digital) media cultural
references. For example, the games the children referred to were mainly
commercial entertainment games.
54
6.2 Article II: Wonder children and victimizing parents: Preservice
early childhood teachers’ beliefs about children and
technology at home
In this study, I examined written assignments completed by preservice early
childhood teachers (N=38) via the constant comparative analysis method (Corbin
& Strauss, 1990; Fram, 2013; Suddaby, 2006) to find answers to three research
questions:
–
What beliefs do preservice teachers have about children and technology at
home?
–
How are parents represented in preservice teachers’ beliefs about children and
technology?
–
What are the relationships between these beliefs and preservice teachers’ views
on the role of technology in early childhood education?
The preservice early childhood teachers believed children were born-competent
technology users who need no help or tutoring from parents to become skillful ICT
users. These preservice teachers believed that parents, in turn, lacked the skills or
will needed to regulate their children’s technology use which, again, the teachers
often described as excessive and caused children health problems, as well as
impaired their imagination and social skills. The preservice teachers expressed that
early childhood education was responsible for ensuring that play and social
interaction are still included in young children’s lives.
6.3 Article III: Digital technologies in early childhood education: A
frame analysis of preservice teachers’ perceptions
This study had two aims: The first was to contribute to the theoretical grounding of
early childhood ICT integration research, and the second was to explore the kinds
of perceptions preservice teachers hold in relation to technology integration when
they start their initial training. I addressed the first objective by exploring the
possibilities of frame analysis theory (Goffman, 1974) in understanding preservice
teachers’ perceptions of the role of digital technologies in early childhood education
through the frames of teaching, education, and care. The second, in turn, was
achieved by including first-year preservice teachers as participants. The
overarching research question was:
How do preservice teachers’ perceptions of
55
technology integration relate to early childhood education’s threefold task of
teaching, education, and care?
The findings suggest that an individual preservice teacher can be for or against
technology use depending on the frame the teacher reflects on technology
integration. Children’s ages and participants’ beliefs about children’s access to
technology at home were the most significant factors in the variation in the
dynamics between and within the frames.
56
57
7 Results: Mapping the third space of ICT
integration in early childhood education
In the results chapter, I re-contextualize and re-conceptualize the findings of the
empirical studies through the third space theory. The main results of this
dissertation study are presented in three subchapters. The first subchapter
concentrates on how first and second spaces were reflected and conceptualized in
children’s drawings and interviews. Thus, the first subchapter concentrates on the
findings provided in Article I. The second subchapter describes how first and
second spaces were reflected and conceptualized in preservice teachers’ beliefs.
This subchapter concentrates on the findings provided by Articles II and III. The
third subchapter is a discussion in which these findings are brought into dialogue.
Figure 4 presents how the individual articles are located in the overarching frame
of the third space.
Fig. 4. Location of empirical articles in third space framework.
7.1 First and second spaces in children’s ideas
The distribution of different activities and devices in children’s drawings is
presented in Table 4. The left side of the table deals with the activities. For example,
58
gaming was mentioned by 86 individual children (83% of the participants); 38 were
girls and 48 were boys, corresponding to 78% of the girls and 89% of the boys
participating in the study, respectively. At the far right of the table, the number of
times different activities were mentioned in total is presented. In the case of gaming,
the number was 119, which is higher than the number of children, as several
children expressed that they would like to use several devices for playing games.
The presentation of devices follows the same logic: 73 children mentioned
computers (71% of the participants); 39 were girls and 34 boys, totaling 80% of the
girls and 63% of the boys, respectively. I begin by exploring the (digital) media
cultural sphere (the first space). Then, I discuss children’s conception of ICT-
mediated early childhood education (the second space).
59
Table 4. Distribution of activities and devices in children’s drawings.
A
ctivity All By gender Computer Tablet Camera Smartphone Television Total
73/71% 50/49% 48/47% 17/17% 12/12%
Girls Boys 39/80%¹ 34/63%² 18/37%¹ 32/59%² 29/59%¹ 19/35%² 14/29%¹ 3/6%² 5/10%¹ 7/13%²
Gaming 86/83% 38/78% 48/89% 34 34 11 29 - - 6 1 2 2 119
Media production 49/48% 25/51% 24/44% 8 6 2 2 24 18 4 1 - - 65
Media reception 36/35% 18/37% 18/33% 13 6 3 4 1 3 3 - 3 5 41
Interaction 17/17% 11/22% 6/11% 5 2 - - 5 2 3 - - - 17
Learning 4/4% 4/8% - 3 - 1 - - - - - - - 4
Play 3/3% 2/4% 1/2% - - - - - 1 - - - - 3
¹ Girls, ² Boys
60
7.1.1 “One could play Mario and listen to good music, like Robin”
Comments related to the commercial media culture (the first space) were notable
in the children’s data. As playing digital games and media consumption (including
watching movies and listening to music) have become popular and regular
activities among young children in Western contexts (Chaudron et al., 2015), the
popularity of these activities was by no means a surprise. Gaming and media
consumption were not portrayed as generic activities: The games the children
referred to were—to a great extent—commercial entertainment games. In 34 cases,
the games were explicitly identified. Angry Birds, which at the time of the data
collection was the digital game most frequently played by Finnish children
(Suoninen, 2014), was mentioned the most often. Other games mentioned by the
children included Minecraft, Super Mario, and Pou. Similarly, the movies and
programs (e.g., Cars 2) the children wanted to watch, as well as the music (e.g.,
Robin) they wanted to listen to, were those at the peak of popularity at the time of
the study.
In addition to recognizable commercial games, there were a notable number of
references to “monster games,” “racing/car games,” and “princess games that are
most likely commercial games but could not be linked unambiguously to any
specific product. With these indicative references included, different brands
19
were
found in a total of 65% (n=67) of the drawings. Media cultural influences were
especially notable in boys’ drawings as 78% (n=42) included explicit or implicit
brands in their drawings. Similarly, boys were keen about playing games, and
almost half of the boys (44%, n=26) expressed interest only in games. This could
be because playing digital games is more common among young boys than among
young girls (Aarsand, 2010). All this data supports Buckingham’s (2015) statement
about ICT being a cultural form for children.
The overall percent of brand references was higher than in Selwyn et al. (2009)
study (24%). One possible explanation for this difference is related to recent
changes in (digital) media culture. There was a six-year interval (2007–2013)
between the data collection in Selwyn et al. (2009) study and Article I. During these
years, handheld technologies, especially tablet computers, have become a typical
form of household ICT (Chaudron et al., 2015; Marsh et al., 2015), and at the time
19
The definition of a brand is loosely understood here as a trademark or the name of a product, or content
with no requirement to be especially well or widely known.
61
of the data collection for Article I, iPad sales were breaking records in Finland
(Apple, 2013). Tablet computers were not only the second most often mentioned
device (49%, n=50), but among the 25 brands named by the children, the iPad was
mentioned the most often (12 references). The findings of a study by Dunn et al.
(2016, 6) suggested that children use iPads as a collective category for all tablet
computers as children who were not aware of which brand their tablet was referred
to them as “
kinda like an iPad
” Interestingly, one child understood a tablet as being
a pill and drew a container full of tablets. This misconception could be caused by
the practice in Finnish early childhood classes of giving children xylitol tablets after
lunch. Although the example is anecdotal, it emphasizes the importance of not of
thinking of children as a homogenous group regarding their knowledge of and
experience with ICT acquired in the first space.
7.1.2 “It’d be fun to practice reading with a computer”
In contrast to the richness of the (digital) media cultural first space references, only
a small number of drawings contained examples of contextualized ICT-mediated
practices in which ICT use was connected to the traditions of early childhood
education. Some children remarked that they would like to take pictures and videos
to document their doings in preschool, and one child drew himself playing with a
computer during the free play period. In addition, only 4% (n=4) of the children
expressed that they would like to use ICT for learning in preschool. One child
commented that she would like to practice reading with a computer. Two other
children, in turn, stated that they would like to do calculations with a computer, and
one commented that she would like to find information on train schedules and ticket
prices. One possible explanation for the low number of learning-related references
is that children do not consider preschool a place for learning: In Stig Broström’s
(2016) study of 10-year-old children’s memories about preschool, none of the 251
children came up with memories they would have linked to learning. Instead, play,
games, and fun were the most common things the children remembered.
20
Another
explanation is that children do not consider ICT a tool for learning in early
childhood education. This finding could be due to the lack of such experiences as
20
I am not suggesting that children would not learn via play or games or that play and games could not
be used as pedagogical methods to teach children about things. What I mean is that the children in
Broström’s (2016) study simply did not connect these activities with learning or mention learning. This
is supported by Einarsdóttir (2014) as in her study many of the children did have difficulties explaining
what they learned from the preschool teachers
62
only one of the five groups who participated in this dissertation study had
functioning ICT for children to use at the time of the data collection.
Although the shortage of first-hand experiences could be one reason for the
lack of contextualized practices in drawings, it is not the whole story. None of the
children from the group who had a functioning interactive whiteboard (IWB) drew
or mentioned the IWB. One explanation is that the children saw no reason to draw
IWBs, as they already had them. However, it is possible that children were not
satisfied with an IWB as a form of ICT or with the practices carried out with it.
Practitioners of this group reported that the IWBs tended to freeze every time two
children touched it simultaneously (Mertala, 2017). Children have also evaluated
IWB-mediated practices as low in playfulness (Morgan, 2010).
The lack of experience could also be a reason for the finding that no children
drew or mentioned teachers. However, as the absence of teachers was also notable
in the study by Selwyn et al. (2009) in which the children had experiences of using
ICT at school, this phenomenon deserves closer inspection. Although no
comprehensive clarification for this can be obtained from the data, there are two
different (but not mutually exclusive) explanations: The first explanation is that the
drawings (implicitly) reflect children’s wishes to be the ones in control of the
devices. This reasoning is supported by Selwyn et al. (2009) as in their study
children explicitly called for broader agency with the devices in school. The second
explanation is related to the relationships of ICT-mediated activities and children’s
understanding of teachers’ roles in early childhood education. According to Rönn
Palmadóttir and Johanna Einarsdóttir (2015), young children understand teachers
as those who assist the children in play situations and with play materials and who
participate in play, give confirmation for children’s competencies, and support
social interactions (see also Broström, 2016). As the children only rarely discussed
ICT use in terms of play (4%, n=3) and social interaction (17%, n=17), this could
be a reason for the absence of teachers.
7.2 First and second spaces in preservice teachers’ beliefs
This chapter presents the key findings related to preservice teachers’ beliefs about
children’s first space (see Subchapter 7.2.1 and Article II) and beliefs about the role
of ICT in early childhood education (see Subchapter 7.2.2 and Article III).
63
7.2.1 “We have to be aware of the world they are living in”
Preservice teachers acknowledged the importance of teachers being aware of
children’s experiences with ICT at home. Families were not portrayed as a
homogenous group as the participants noted that families differed in terms of
financial situation, cultural and religious backgrounds, and parental educational
values and competencies. This supports Baum’s (2000) claim that preservice
teachers are aware that the families they will work with come from diverse
backgrounds.
The needy children of disadvantaged parents
ICT was believed to have a significant role in young children’s everyday lives
whether they had access to it or not. Those with no access were considered
disadvantaged as learning to use ICT was understood to be crucial for children’s
future schooling and work life. The preservice teachers acknowledged that families’
financial situations can cause differences regarding the availability of digital
resources, and thus discriminate against children who come from less fortunate
socioeconomic backgrounds. One preservice teacher, for example, wrote how
poorer families have to prioritize their purchases, and thus, the families may have
to choose between buying their child a warm winter uniform and buying their child
a smartphone. Placing a warm winter uniform (which, in the Finnish climate, is
essential) and a smartphone in the same category suggests that access to modern
technology was understood as being essential to a child’s future life. Furthermore,
it also suggests that if the family’s financial situation were better, they would buy
their children the same technology the children from more fortunate families were
believed to have access to.
Wonder children of invisible parents
Although families were not portrayed as a homogenous group, the preservice
teachers believed the majority of children lived in technology-rich homes. The
preservice teachers believed that children with access to ICT were self-taught and
savvy technology users and referred to them as the “wonder children of future
technology” which piquantly captures the kind of magical and mythical aura
included in descriptions of children’s presumed ICT competencies. ICT skills were
something children were believed to learn with no help from their parents (see also
64
Plowman, McPake, & Stephen,
2008), and children were also believed to master
digital technologies better than adults. These discourses have much in common
with Mark Prensky’s (2001, p. 2) description of digital natives, who are
“surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video
cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age” and thus are
“native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the
internet.” Such beliefs have been identified among preservice (Lindahl &
Folkesson, 2012a) and in-service teachers (Roberts-Holmes, 2014; Salomaa &
Mertala, in press).
Victimized children of victimizing parents
Although preservice teachers believed children’s access to ICT use taught them
functional ICT competences (i.e., how to use a computer), at the same time, they
feared access hindered other skills. Several teacher students expressed their
concerns about technology use stealing time from other activities, that is, play and
social interaction. Replacing those activities with technology use was thought to
have several downsides. Participants believed that technology use hinders
children’s social skills, as they believed children play games and watch movies and
children’s programs alone. In addition, participants expressed their concern that
technology use can be harmful for children’s physical health. Obesity, eye fatigue,
hyperactivity, and attention deficit disorder were some of the concrete examples
given.
As the preservice teachers were writing about the youngest children, they
emphasized that parents are responsible for ensuring that children are not exposed
to harmful content or use the technology for prolonged periods. In the essays, the
preservice teachers stated that the disadvantages listed above could be avoided if
parents were aware of them, if they supervised and regulated their children’s
technology use, and if they made sure their children’s on- and off-screen activities
were appropriately balanced. However, this was something parents were believed
to have trouble with, and students often referred to children’s high technology use
as being a consequence of incompetent parenting (see also Lehtikangas & Mulari,
2016; Meehan & Meehan, 2017; Ylönen, 2012). The preservice teachers thought
parents lack the skills or the will needed to regulate their children’s technology use.
A consistent theme was that parents do not want to regulate children’s technology
use because by letting children play games or watch programs for prolonged
periods, parents can make things easier for themselves.
65
It was also believed that parents’ own technology use takes time away from
their children, and several essays portrayed parents as being unable to control their
own technology use (Flewitt et al., 2015). In these representations, technology,
especially smartphones, was represented as “sticky media devices” (Mantere &
Raudaskoski, 2017), which refers to a situation in which a child tries to gain
attention from a parent who is immersed in smartphone use. Parents’ antisocial
technology use was also believed to teach children similar behavioral models.
7.2.2 “My feelings about using ICT are still a bit conflicted”
The findings of this study suggest that preservice teachers’ orientations toward ICT
use in early childhood education are a highly complex issue as the participants
articulated numerous different arguments for and against integration of ICT in early
childhood education. Conclusively, positive beliefs were linked mostly to teaching,
while care was discussed almost solely from the perspective of negative effects.
21
ICT’s role in the educational task of early childhood education was believed to be
twofold: The preservice teachers saw early childhood education either as
preparation for the societal change or as a place where traditional activities are
preserved.
Variations in beliefs were observed not only between the participants but within
an individual preservice teacher, who can have varied and sometimes competing
and contradictory beliefs regarding ICT use, depending on the perspective
(teaching, education, or care) through which he or she reflected on the topic.
Grounded on Ervin Goffman’s (1974) seminal work on frame analysis, Puroila
(2002, p. 45) argued that “talking about one single professional role or identity is
misleading, as educators have different roles and identities within different frames.”
The findings of this dissertation study support her statement, as the preservice
teachers moved between different roles in their narratives.
21
Only one student expressed that ICT could have something to add for the care task of early childhood
education. She wrote that “children’s naptime could be enforced by using a developed sound system”.
I understand this to mean that with a good sound system, some comforting music (or other calming
soundscapes) could be played to children during naptime to make the situation more relaxed and
enjoyable.
66
Age matters: Tensions between teaching and care
The findings of this study suggest that children’s age plays a notable role in the
dynamics between different orientations. This was especially the case with
preservice teachers’ beliefs related to teaching and care. Several participants
explicitly stated that ICT use relates to teaching and thus, preferred ICT use with
children in pre-primary education (6 year olds) than with younger children. This
notion can be partially explained by the fact that pre-primary education—as the
transitional year from early childhood education to primary education—is often
considered school preparation by many preservice and in-service teachers
(Einarsdóttir, 2003; Lindahl & Folkesson, 2012a; Ylitapio-Mäntylä, 2009). Similar
viewpoints were expressed by the preservice teachers in this study.
Moreover, when the participants were writing about children aged 3 and
younger, they approached early childhood education from a profoundly care-
oriented perspective. This is supported by Ylitapio-Mäntylä (2009) as in her study
she found that teachers working with the youngest children orient toward their work
from a profoundly care-related angle. As argued by Katerine Van Laere and Michel
Vandenbroeck (2018), care is often considered work related to the physical needs
of children while teaching is work related to their cognitive needs. In the data,
younger children’s developmental needs and ways of being were expressed in a
more physical way than those of pre-primary-aged children (see also Lindahl &
Folkesson, 2012a). This notion provides another perspective for looking at
preservice teachers’ beliefs that teaching with ICT is not suitable for the youngest
children. It appears that it is not merely ICT use that the children are seen to be “too
young for,” but they are also “too young” to be taught in general. Although teacher-
initiated practices can be carried out with older children, with the youngest children,
the role of the teacher is to ensure that children’s “natural” learning and
development processes are not disrupted by unnecessary things, such as ICT use.
Beware the positive: Digital games and playful learning
Previous research has identified that preservice and in-service teachers have a
positive attitude toward ICT as a tool for teaching (e.g., Brown & Englehardt, 2017;
Ramírez et al., 2017). The findings of the present study support this notion as the
vast majority (32 out of 38) of preservice teachers expressed positive beliefs
regarding the benefits of using ICT in teaching. Nevertheless, having positive
beliefs was not the same as having pedagogically sound beliefs. This conclusion
67
was most apparent in participants’ beliefs regarding game-based learning which
here refers to the use of digital games in teaching.
Participants who promoted game-based learning equated game-based learning
with play-based learning as the use of digital learning games that was often
described with terms such as “fun” and “playful.” The preservice teachers also
explicitly expressed that one of the key elements of the use of digital games is that
children do not notice that while they are playing games they are learning at the
same time. The surreptitious nature of game-based learning can also be linked to
play-based learning, as it corresponds well with the idea that “even though children
learn while playing, they don’t play to learn” (Sintonen, Ohls, Kumpulainen, &
Lipponen, 2015, p. 8), a commonly used expression in the Finnish context. As play
is a central aspect of early childhood education in Finland (Opetushallitus, 2016),
as well as globally (Pyle, DeLuca, & Danniels, 2017), by using this assimilative
reasoning, preservice teachers were able to legitimate the use of technology by
embedding it in the established discourses and traditions of early childhood
education. As suggested by Lindahl and Folkesson (2012a), by emphasizing
informal learning and playfulness preservice teachers can make the use of
technology appear less threatening to early childhood education traditions.
According to previous research, combining play-based pedagogy and digital
technologies has appeared to be challenging for early childhood teachers (Edwards,
2016; Nuttall et al., 2015; Palaiologou, 2016b).
However, this assimilative logic is simplistic and pedagogically awkward. First,
the phrase “children don’t play to learn” refers to free play: a child-initiated activity
with no goals set by the teachers. The use of instructional games, in turn, is a
teacher-initiated practice with explicit educational goals. In general, the view of
children as passive learners who are unaware of the purpose of their activities is
highly problematic. Research suggests that encouraging children to think about
what they are doing and why they are doing it makes learning activities more goal-
oriented from the children’s perspective, and thus more conscious (Sandberg et al.,
2017). This view is also at odds with the guidelines set out in the Finnish National
Core Curricula, as in the curricula the development of learning skills is named as
one of the key tasks of early childhood education (Opetushallitus, 2016). In short,
having positive beliefs about technology integration does not necessarily mean that
technology will be used in a pedagogically appropriate manner.
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To prepare and to preserve: The twofold educational task of early
childhood education
Almost all of the preservice teachers referred to the technologization and
digitalization of contemporary society in their essays (see also Izumi-Taylor et al.,
2010; Lindahl & Folkesson, 2012a, 2012b), but the views of how early childhood
education should react to this societal change varied. In some essays, the preservice
teachers emphasized that early childhood education should prepare children for a
highly digitalized society (preparation), while in others, they noted that a key task
of early childhood education is to ensure that traditional activities remain a part of
young children’s lives (preservation). Some essays included both viewpoints. What
was missing was the reformative nature of education as all the examples and
reasoning in the preparation discourse were about equipping children to function
effectively in society rather than to act as agents of change in their own turn (Biesta
et al., 2015).
Regardless the educational frame through which the preservice teachers
interpreted ICT integration, they understood early childhood education to have an
important role in giving all children equal opportunities for future schooling, as
well as life in general. One way to achieve this goal was by bridging the digital gap
between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. As discussed in
Subchapter 7.2.1, children from economically disadvantaged families were not
thought to have access to ICT, and thus, these children were believed to have worse
starting points for life than their more fortunate peers.
In contrast, some of the children who had access to ICT were believed not to
get their share of traditional play, social interactions, and outdoor activities at home.
These activities are also core aspects of early childhood education (Broström et al.,
2015; Opetushallitus, 2016; Pyle et al., 2017). Many preservice teachers wrote that
preschool should be a place where children have opportunities to engage in
imaginative roleplay and social interaction, which they did not believe were regular
aspects in children’s home lives. Some even stated that early childhood education
should offer children an alternative and technology-free environment (see also
Friedrichs-Liesenkötter, 2015; Lehtikangas & Mulari, 2016).
In summary, be it access to or a respite from ICT, early childhood education’s
educational task was understood to be taking care of the things parents were
believed to fail to deliver. That being said, another prominent theme was that
teachers in early childhood education should educate not only children but also
their parents about how to use technology in a manner that does not jeopardize
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children’s well-being. This notion not only supports Ylönen’s (2012) argument that
teachers often assume parents allow their children to use too much and the wrong
kind of technology but also mirrors the culture of Finnish early childhood teachers
acting as educational experts who give advice to parents in parent–teacher meetings
(Alasuutari, 2010; Hujala, Turja, Gaspar, Veisson, & Waniganayake, 2009), as well
as the finding that preservice teachers tend to think that their knowledge of children
is more relevant that of parents (Graue, 2005).
7.3 Discussion of the results
The overarching research question of this dissertation study was
what are the key
characteristics of the third space of ICT integration in early childhood education
when this space is constructed from children’s ideas and preservice teachers’ beliefs
?
In this Discussion subchapter, I discuss three themes that—based on the synthesis
of Articles I, II, and III—I consider to be the most important in shaping the third
space and thus the most crucial ones regarding ICT integration (see Figure 5).
Fig. 5. Main themes arising from the synthesis of the articles.
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7.3.1 Dissonance between the meanings children and teachers give
to ICT use shaping the third space
The first of the three key points is that there is a
dissonance between the meanings
teachers and children give to ICT use,
and this dissonance shapes the third space. I
dig deeper into this question by looking at it from the viewpoint of digital games.
86% of the children in this study reported that playing digital games is what they
would like to do with ICT in preschool. Similarly, the preservice teachers
commented that digital learning games are a good method for integrating ICT into
early childhood education. Superficially, it appears that all is well: Children want
to play games, and teachers respond to this desire with (age-appropriate) gaming.
However, for the teachers, playing digital games in early childhood education
means using educational games to teach children different curricular subjects,
predominantly literacy and math (see also Blackwell et al., 2016; Mertala, 2017).
In contrast, children commented explicitly that what they would like to play in
preschool are their favorite (commercial and leisure) games. Teachers, in turn,
consider playing commercial games something children should be protected from
and which have no role in early childhood education (see also Lehtikangas &
Mulari, 2016).
In short, there appears to be a dissonance between the meanings that children
and teachers give to digital games. Thus, using digital learning games cannot be
automatically considered child-initiated pedagogy (cf. Dunn et al., 2016). It is
questionable whether merely digitalizing early childhood education would make it
“a contemporary professional practice of relevance” (Hernwall, 2016), if it pays no
attention to ICT as a cultural form (Buckingham, 2015; Potter & McDougall, 2017).
Instead of being initiated by children, such practices can be described as a collision
of teacher-initiated goals and practices and children’s digital media cultural
experiences and interests. Subtle empirical evidence suggests that children do not
consider playing instructional games in preschool a learning activity (Kjällander &
Moinian, 2014; Vangsnes et al., 2012). Thus, teachers’ high hopes for the
effectiveness of game-based learning are overestimated, as well as pedagogically
problematic.
ICT pedagogy that pays no attention to children’s media cultural dispositions—
and topics of interest in general—is also at odds with Finnish early childhood
curricula as they emphasize the importance of paying attention to children’s
experiences and views (Opetushallitus, 2016). This alignment unambiguously
demands that children’s views and ideas need to be considered and recognized in
71
pedagogical planning. One child expressed that she would like to use the internet
to study train schedules and ticket prices. Although such an idea may seem an
anecdotal example, it is a fruitful and concrete starting point for examining different
digital services and their role in our everyday actions. That being said, not only
media cultural interests matter: The second most popular activity, media production,
included many examples of children wishing they could take pictures of their
doings in preschool. These themes and other pedagogical possibilities are discussed
in subchapter 8.2.2: Implications for pedagogical practice.
7.3.2 Teachers’ unrealistic beliefs about children and ICT shaping
the third space
The second key theme can be compressed into the statement that
teachers have
unrealistic beliefs about children and ICT.
Children were often presented as born
competent ICT users who outshine their parents and teachers with their skills. In
the second one, children are portrayed as victims of excessive ICT use and bad
parenting. The belief that children are digital natives is shared by parents (Plowman
et al., 2008) and preservice and in-service teachers (Lindahl & Folkesson, 2012b;
Salomaa & Mertala, in press; Roberts-Holmes, 2014) but is challenged by
empirical research. In the large-scale European Union (EU) Kids Online report
(Livingstone, Haddon, Görzig, & Ólafsson, 2011), two-thirds of 9- to 10-year-old
children commented that they did not know the internet better than their parents. In
addition, not all children in the present study knew what a tablet computer was.
According to Sonya Livingstone et al. (2011, p. 46; see also Kirschner & De
Bruyckere, 2017), the danger of the talk about digital natives is that it obscures
children’s need for support in developing digital skills. The preservice teachers in
the present study found it difficult to think what they could teach about ICT for
those children who have access to ICT at home.
However, the preservice teachers believed that children with access to ICT
used it excessively. The preservice teachers believed this excessive use leads
deprivation of traditional play, social interactions, and outdoor activities. This was
understood to be due to incompetent parenting. How realistic these beliefs are is
another important question. This is especially the case with the “victimizing parents”
discourse as preservice teachers expressed highly discriminatory views on
contemporary parenthood through it. When preservice teachers’ beliefs are
compared with findings of research on children ICT at home, the outcome is that
the fears are overemphasized. To give an example, teachers believed that children’s
72
ICT use was a solitary activity. However, in Stephanie Chaudron and colleagues’
(2015) cross-national study, Finland stood out as the country with most social ICT
use. This finding is supported by the findings of the Children’s Media Barometer
(Suoninen, 2014) as according to it in every age group between age 0 to 6 years
children’s ICT use took place more commonly with someone (with parents or other
children) than alone. The same result was found for the amount of ICT use. For
example, Ruslan Slutsky and Lori DeShetler (2017) reported 3- to 5-year-old
children to spent 5.76 hours engaging in non-technology play (indoors or outdoors)
and 2.62 hours of technology play during the weekend. During the weekdays, the
numbers were 3.15 hours for non-technology play and 1.91 hours for technology
play. Furthermore, parents have acknowledged that children’s ICT use includes
risks (Palaiologou, 2017). Thus, regulating and monitoring children’s ICT use is
understood to be good parenting, and guardians have reported that they feel guilty
if they let their children use technology for a prolonged period (Aarsand, 2011;
Noppari, 2014). In other words, a technology-rich context does not lead
automatically to high use by children, and although digital technology is an
important part of children’s lives, it does not dominate them.
The same also applies to the preservice teachers’ beliefs about disadvantaged
parents. The idea that the “digital gap” is a static condition of absolute inequalities
between two distinct groups (van Dijk, 2006) is simplistic. Although family income
appears to affect families’ opportunities to have an internet connection and
technology (e.g., Eurostat, 2014; Rideout & Katz, 2016), due to the proliferation of
affordable technology, such as smart phones and tablet computers, as well as
inexpensive wireless internet connections, the digital gap is narrowing all the time.
The number of low-income families with 0- to 8-year-old children who have a
mobile device increased from 34% to 51% between 2011 and 2017 in the United
States (Common Sense Media, 2017). Additionally, in a recent British report
(Marsh et al., 2015), there were no notable family income-based differences in
terms of whether children could access tablet computers. The only difference was
that children from higher-income families had access to more expensive tablets
(e.g., iPads) and those from lower-income families to less expensive ones (e.g.,
Samsung Galaxy).
Although the data does not provide a full account of how these beliefs are
constructed, there are three different, but not mutually exclusive, explanations: First,
some preservice teachers referred to personal experiences and observations gained,
for instance, while doing child care work in families. Research suggests that people,
in general, assimilate new information based on their existing beliefs, which, again,
73
can be formed by chance and anecdotal observations and are rarely evaluated
critically (Ertmer, 2005; Nespor, 1987). The aggravated perceptions regarding the
quality of children’s upbringing at home can also reflect the history and tradition
of Finnish early childhood education and media education policies. In Finnish
media education policy documents, parents are often represented as incapable
educators regarding digital media and that institutional education is responsible for
guiding and supporting parents in this demanding task (Uusitalo, 2015). Parents’
need for support of and guidance by welfare experts is also a central theme in
(previous) Finnish early childhood education curricular documents (Onnismaa,
2010). Third, it is also common that children are portrayed as either digital natives
or victims of technology in the media (Plowman, McPake, & Stephen, 2010;
Selwyn, 2003; Wartella, Rideout, Lauricella, & Connell, 2014).
7.3.3 The multifaceted nature of early childhood education shapes
the third space
The third key point can be summarized in the statement that
the multifaceted nature
of early childhood education shapes the third space.
Especially in the Nordic
context, early childhood education is understood as a combination of teaching,
education, and care, known as the EDUCARE framework (Broström, 2006; Van
Laere & Vandenbroeck, 2018). Although EDUCARE has been described as a
holistic framework (Opetushallitus, 2016), the findings of this dissertation study
suggest that in ICT integration the framework acts as a disintegrating vehicle. The
teaching perspective on ICT integration was mainly positive. However, when the
perspective changed to care, the views were profoundly negative.
These contradictions took place at two levels: between and within the
participating preservice teachers. It is important to acknowledge the differences
between the views of different teachers because in many countries early childhood
education is carried out in teams (Van Laere, Peeters, & Vandenbroeck, 2012). If
educators
22
working in the same group have different perspectives on ICT
integration, these inconsistencies create different kinds of micro-spaces for children
to encounter (see also Marsh, 2006). Thus, it is important that the members of the
team regularly discuss and critically reflect their beliefs, views, and values
regarding ICT and early childhood education.
22
As early childhood education teams consist of not only teachers but also teachers and nurses, I chose
to use the term “educator” instead of “teacher” here.
74
In addition, an individual teacher can have varied and sometimes even
competing and contradictory beliefs regarding ICT use, depending on the frame
through which he or she reflects on the topic. The preservice teachers emphasized
care when they wrote about the education of the youngest children but stressed
teaching when they discussed the education of older, pre-primary-aged children. In
other words, if a teacher orients to his or her work from a profoundly care-related
perspective, then his or her positive teaching-related beliefs may not actualize as
pedagogical practices as the care-related risks surpass the teaching-related benefits
(see also Howard, 2013). Some preservice teachers challenged the necessity of
technology integration by suggesting that despite the potential benefits of
technology integration, early childhood education should offer children an
alternative environment in which no technology is used (see also Friedrichs-
Liesenkötter, 2015; Lindahl & Folkesson, 2012a, 2012b).
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8 Conclusions
In this chapter, I first present the evaluation of the research which includes ethical
considerations. Then, I discuss implications for early child education, teacher
training, and future research.
8.1 Evaluation of the research
One way to look at the quality of research is to ask does the research address
questions or issues that are important for scholarly knowledge and/or policy and
practice (Moss et al., 2009). These questions relate to the worthiness of the research:
What are the justifications for carrying out such a research project in the first place?
The lack of attention by early childhood ICT integration research paid to the unique
features of early childhood education has been acknowledged in several studies
(Blackwell et al., 2013; Edwards, 2016; Plumb & Kautz, 2015). A key motivation
for this dissertation study was to contribute to this need. The second main
motivation is related to theoretical contributions: As discussed in the Introduction,
the current stage of research is dominated by discourses which emphasize either
the assimilative or differentiated nature of early childhood ICT integration.
Through exploring preservice teachers’ beliefs and comparing them with children’s
ideas by scrutinizing the beliefs and ideas through third space theory, this
dissertation was able to move beyond such discourses and provide a new
framework for future research to apply.
In the context of the present study, another key question is the decision to focus
on preservice teachers instead of in-service teachers. By doing so, the third space
represented as the main result is still a “hypothetical space” as the children and
preservice teachers who participated in this study did not work together. The reason
behind this choice was that in much of the literature preservice teachers’ voices
were (at the time of writing this) marginalized in early childhood ICT integration
research and that preservice teachers, in general, have often been treated as
members of the digital natives generation, not as (future) educators (e.g., Lei, 2009;
Szeto et al. 2016; Zaranis et al., 2016).
That being said, having a well-justified research topic does not itself equal
good-quality research. Another feature highlighted by Pamela Moss et al. (2009) is
the clarity of the central terms of the research. In the context of the present
dissertation, the key themes are the third space and teachers’ beliefs. In the Theory
part (see Chapter 2), I articulated how my understanding of the third space as an
76
intersectional space differs from the mainstream of third space studies. In addition,
I provided an account of what I understand by teachers’ beliefs and what the content
of the beliefs studied in this dissertation is.
One more issue worth addressing is related to the methodological choices made
during the research process: Are the methods used relevant to the research
questions asked? Every research method has its strengths and weaknesses.
Children’s drawings (which were used as data in Article I) are often considered a
less reliable and valid source of information than their writings and telling (Mavers,
2009, p. 263), and drawings are usually seen as self-expression rather than as
communication (Kress & vanLeeuwen, 2006, p. 16). As the choice of words
“considered” and “usually seen” point out, the assumptions of drawings’
informative and communicative limitations are attitudes and viewpoints rather than
facts. To get a better understanding of what the children wanted to say with their
drawings, the children were also interviewed by using the drawing as a “mediating
tool” (Horn & Giacobbe, 2007; Lipponen et al., 2016; Spyrou, 2011). Similarly, the
use of written assignments (which were used as data in Articles II and III) have
pros and cons. Compared to interviews or other oral discussions, the benefit of
written contributions is that the writers are able to check their own texts before
forwarding them and to consider whether there is something they do not want to
say (Uitto, 2011, 85). However, unlike in research interviews, the use of written
contributions does not allow the researcher to ask the respondents clarifying
questions.
The validity of the research is also related to the question of how (or whether)
the interpretations made are supported by the data and are related to the previous
research (Peräkylä, 2011). In all of the articles, the analysis (its phases and the
decisions made) is reported in detail to make the interpretations as clear and
understandable as possible for the reader (Ellingson, 2009, 2011). Similarly, all the
arguments and claims expressed in the results of individual articles are supported
with data extracts. I understand that because research questions determine how the
data is read, I selected the data extracts (which are supposed to represent the
participants’ voices) from the full data set, and thus, they do not reflect the totality
of the participants’ experience (Atkins, et al., 2008; see also Karnieli-Miller et al.,
2009). In addition, the question “who is the me who is doing the selections?” is an
important one to answer as the researcher’s subjectivity is intimately involved in
qualitative research (Ellingson, 2011; Ratner, 2002). In the Introduction, I provided
an account of my background and why I am interested in ICT integration and third
space theory.
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Ethical questions are an important part of the evaluation of the research.
Informed consent was asked from the children (oral), their guardians (written), as
well as from the Department of Education (written) of the city where the data
collection was carried out. Similarly, written consent was requested from the
preservice teachers (Christians, 2011). Privacy issues were carefully considered,
and it is not possible to identify the participants in the research articles. For example,
as the data on the children (see Article I) was collected from a small-scale public
development project, to protect their anonymity, the children’s backgrounds are not
discussed, and the children are not linked to the five preschools involved in the
project. Similarly, in Articles II and III, instead of names (or even pseudonyms) the
participating preservice teachers were referred to with ordinals. As matters of
gender were not addressed in Articles II and III, all the preservice teachers were
referred to with a feminine noun due to the female-oriented gender distribution
(Kvåle & Rambø, 2015).
Another ethics-related question is how the participants are informed about the
outcomes of the research (Flewitt, 2005). In the context of the present study, neither
of the data collections was “just” data collection. The data for Article I was
collected as part of a development project, and the children’s ideas were taken into
consideration when planning how to integrate ICT-related content into the groups’
pedagogical practices (see Mertala, 2015b; Salomaa & Mertala, in press). Similarly,
the data for Articles II and III was collected as part of a compulsory course in
teacher education. The assignments were returned before the first contact lesson
which made it possible for me to design and refine the content and methods of the
course to meet the needs of these particular teacher students. In other words, the
participants were informed about the preliminary findings right after the first
screening of the data (see also Olafsdóttir & Einarsdóttir, 2017).
8.2 Implications of the research
The research reported in this dissertation study has several implications for future
research, the pedagogy of early childhood education, and teacher education. Next,
I discuss these implications in separate subchapters.
8.2.1 Implications for future research
The research reported in this dissertation has several implications for future
research. First, as the third space represented as the overarching result of this
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dissertation is still hypothetical, it is up to future research to examine the kind of
third spaces that exist at the level of everyday educational practices. To give a
concrete example, the intersectional interpretation of third space theory provides a
useful theoretical framework for carrying out ethnographical research in preschools.
An important research topic would be to study and compare the kinds of third
spaces that take place in teacher-initiated activities and everyday practices both of
which are considered educationally valuable in early childhood education
(Venninen, Leinonen, Lipponen, & Ojala, 2014). As the Ninjago example from
Lehtikangas and Mulari’s (2016) study suggested, children’s first space knowledge
is treated differently in teacher-initiated “pedagogized” third spaces (writing of
NinjaGo stories) than in child-initiated practices (Ninjago role-play).
The intersectional interpretation of the third space introduced in this
dissertation provides an interesting framework for studying third spaces, other than
those that are strictly related to ICT, media, or literacies. Staying in the field of
early childhood education, one option would be to study what kinds of third spaces
are constructed during “toy days” when children bring their own toys to the
preschool, present them to the teacher and other children, and then play “freely”
with them (Ruckenstein, 2010). Previous research suggested that the playthings
most valued by children are often unwanted by educators (Hartmann and Brougère,
2004; Wohlwend, 2017). It has been argued that toy days create educational
challenges as toys suggest ideologies and narratives that are incompatible with the
pedagogical culture of the preschool. Thus, the “toy day” interferes with the
educational agenda (Ruckenstein, 2010, p. 505) creating what initially appear to be
tensioned third spaces.
8.2.2 Implications for pedagogical practices of early childhood
education
As children orient to digital games from a media cultural perspective, instead of
merely using games early childhood education should (also) consider games as a
subject of learning (Buckingham, 2015). This philosophy is actually already
included in the Finnish National Core Curriculum’s description of ICT competence
as it calls teachers to examine games with children (Opetushallitus, 2016).
According to David Buckingham and Andrew Burn (2007), learning games can be
understood as a development of functional and critical game literacy. Functional
literacy includes basic hardware skills (i.e., the ability to load and save a game) and
software skills (i.e., the ability to navigate around the game space). Critical literacy,
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in turn, refers to the ability for a critical reflection of games, gameplay, and game
culture. Although functional literacy can be practiced simply by playing different
kinds of games, critical literacy requires different means. One way to support
critical game literacy is to make games with children (Buckingham & Burn, 2007).
The rapid evolution of easy-to-use game programming tools (e.g., Scratch Jr.) has
lowered the competence needed to create simple digital games.
However, more important than the form of the actual production is the
knowledge construction that takes place during the pedagogical process, and
examining digital games (or any other form of ICT) as a cultural form does not
necessarily require any digital instruments. Teachers might ask children to tell them
about their favorite games through visual methods, such as drawing, to support their
thinking and narration. This approach first positions children as experts, and their
teachers—who have been found to be unfamiliar with the contemporary digital
media culture of children (Aubrey & Dahl, 2014; Dong & Newman, 2016)—can
learn a great deal from them. However, at the same time, teachers can guide
children’s attention toward things they are not yet aware of. This can be done with
simple concrete questions, such as “Why do you like this game?” and “Do you
know how this game was made?” (Salomaa & Mertala, in press).
As the children in the present dissertation study showed notable interest in
photographing their doings in preschool, it is important to consider what
pedagogical possibilities photographing would offer. As argued earlier, the visual
medium can act as a mediating tool through which different parties are better able
to understand each other’s thinking (e.g., Lipponen et al., 2016; Spyrou, 2011), and
this potential is not restricted to research processes. Research suggests that
photograph-mediated discussions can provide children an opportunity to reflect on
the reasons for their own and their peers’ success (Mykkänen, Määttä, & Järvelä,
2016). As supporting children’s learning skills is named a common educational
goal in the Finnish National Core Curriculum (Opetushallitus, 2016), such an
approach provides notable pedagogical opportunities. Research also suggests that
educational processes via digital photography give preschool children the ability to
experiment with problem-solving and to develop curiosity and pleasure in learning,
as well as independence, confidence, responsibility, empowerment, and
participatory learning (Friedman, 2016).
In both examples (exploring games and taking pictures of meaningful things),
children’s topics of interest act as a starting point for phenomenon- and inquiry-
based learning processes that go beyond merely using different digital devices and
content with the children. By doing so, early childhood ICT pedagogy can develop
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into a “transformative space where the potential for an expanded form of learning
and the development of new knowledge are heightened” (Gutiérrez, 2008, p. 152).
8.2.3 Implications for teacher education
Currently, the educational technology courses in early childhood teacher education
concentrate mainly on the introduction of appropriate resources and methods used
in teaching (e.g., Istenic Starčič et al., 2016; Salomaa et al., 2017; Tokmak, 2013).
As a concrete example, in a recent survey 77% of Finnish preservice teachers
reported that they have been taught how to use ICT in teaching, but fewer than 20%
reported that their training had included any information on how people use media.
Fewer than 30% also reported that they had been taught about how to use media
safely or about media-related risks (Salomaa et al., 2017). This finding is
worrisome for (at least) two reasons. First, the emphasis on the uses of ICT as a
tool for teaching, rather than on the socio-cultural approaches of digital
technologies, in such courses teach students (at best) only a little about how
children relate to ICT. As suggested in this dissertation, such knowledge is crucial
for planning ICT-mediated practices. Second, teaching-centered approaches fail to
pay respect to beliefs related to education and care, which, based on the findings in
this dissertation, have a notable role in teachers’ disposition toward ICT use.
As supporting children’s ICT competence has become compulsory in Finnish
early childhood education (Opetushallitus, 2016), this finding raises concerns not
only about the quality of ICT-enhanced pedagogy but also regarding teachers’ well-
being. Situations in which a teacher feels compelled to increase the educational use
of ICT even though it contradicts his or her personal educational values may cause
tensions and “technostress” for teachers (Syvänen, Mäkiniemi, Syrjä, Heikkilä-
Tammi, & Viteli, 2016; see also Howard, 2013). Joce Nuttall et al. (2015, 233)
recommended that ICT-related teacher training should pay attention to teachers’
fears, hopes, and experiences because they provide “important clues about how to
make professional development truly meaningful for teachers”. Thus, drawing on
the argument by Nuttal et al. (2015), it is worth asking what training solely related
to teaching can offer to a (preservice) teacher who orients toward his or her (future)
work from a profoundly care-related perspective.
Teachers can also act against curricular alignments or (pre)school policies if
they think the policies are in contrast to children’s foundational needs (Lynch &
Redpath, 2014; Marsh, 2006). As discussed in Articles II and III, preservice
teachers’ care- and education-related concerns were largely based on (unrealistic)
81
beliefs of children’s excessive ICT use at home, and it was noted that these beliefs
prevent the preservice teachers from using ICT with children in preschool. Previous
research suggested that the change in beliefs in teacher education demands that
working with them must be given special attention in teacher education (Brownlee
et al., 2001; Isikoglu, 2008). Therefore, educational technology courses must
include critical reflection on preservice teachers’ preconceptions and beliefs about
children and technology. This applies to beliefs about children being digital natives.
By questioning and challenging this unfounded belief, the pedagogical pitfall of
assuming that children possess talents and abilities that they do not actually have
can be avoided (Kirschner & De Bruyckere, 2017). These notions summarize the
key message of this dissertation: sensitive and (truly) child-centered early
childhood education can be provided only when children are encountered as who
they are, and not as who we hope or fear them to be.
82
83
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