Parents’ Views on the Use of Technology in the Early Childhood Period

The main aim of this research is to examine parents’ views on technology use in the early childhood period. Survey method was used in this research. The research population consists of the parents, whose children go to the pre-school education institutions in Istanbul province. The research sample consists of 477 parents chosen by the random sampling method, who have children who go to 9 different pre-school education institutions in the 2015-2016 spring semester, 3 of these schools being state schools and 6 private schools. The “Personal Information Form” developed by the researcher and the “Parents’ Views on the Use of Technology by Children in the Pre-School Period Scale” developed by Kılınç were used in the data collection. Data collected for the study were analysed using SPSS 20 program. At the end of the research, it was found out that parents’ views on the use of technology in the early childhood period differ significantly by the gender of the children, the gender of parents, the type of the school children attend and the level of income, while parents’ views on the use of technology in the early childhood period do not differ significantly by the working status of the mothers, the age of the children and the number of children parents have.

"The scores taken by the parents with daughters in the sub-dimension of suggestions are higher than of those with sons. This may be explained by the fact that parents in Turkey are more protective of their daughters." "The scores taken by mothers in the sub-dimension of the family guidance in technology use and the harms of the technology are higher than the scores of fathers." "The scores taken by the parents whose children attend private pre-school education institutions are higher than the scores taken by the parents whose children attend state pre-school education institutions in the dimension of the benefits of the technology, technology application areas, and suggestions."(Ekici, 2016, p.67)