Reimagining TPACK for Early Childhood Education: Teachers’ Knowledge, Parental Adaptation, and ICT Integration in Pandemic-Era Play-Based Learning

Hannah Xie

doi:10.60867/00000096

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an integral part of young children’s lives. However, research on online learning in early childhood education (ECE) prior to the COVID-19 pandemic was limited. The pandemic created a context for young children to engage in online learning, offering new opportunities to explore how ICT can support play-based learning (PL), particularly in China, during prolonged lockdowns. PL is recognised as a developmentally appropriate and effective pedagogical approach, but little research has examined its integration with ICT in online contexts for children in ECE. This thesis, deploying the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model as an analytical lens, begins with a scoping review of 47 empirical studies revealing that ICT integration in play-based pedagogies focused on teacher-initiated guided play, child-initiated free play, and balanced approaches with different learning content foci. Building on this, the first qualitative multi-case study explored the experiences of ten teachers from five international schools in China during COVID-19, highlighting the challenges and opportunities in facilitating PL online for children aged 2-6 years. Teachers shifted their use of ICT from a supplementary resource to a primary tool, fostering digital literacy, interactive and exploratory learning, collaboration, and critical thinking. Contextual knowledge was critical for adapting ICT integration to evolving circumstances. The second qualitative study examined three parents’ experiences as unexpected co-educators supporting children aged 3-9 years. Findings indicate that parents’ evolving TPACK influenced children’s engagement, digital literacy, and PL outcomes. Overall, this research highlights the importance of context-aware ICT integration, demonstrates the crucial role of parents in online PL in ECE, and underscores the value of strong teacher-parent partnerships. By documenting teachers’ and parents’ experiences, this study fills a gap in ECE literature and offers teachers and parents practical and theoretical insights for ICT integration with PL for young children’s online learning in ECE.

Reimagining TPACK for Early Childhood Education: Teachers’ Knowledge, Parental Adaptation, and ICT Integration in Pandemic-Era Play-Based Learning

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