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Digital Games for STEM in Early Childhood Education: Active Co-playing Parental Mediation and Educational Content Examination

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STEM, Robotics, Mobile Apps in Early Childhood and Primary Education

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Educational Technology ((LNET))

Abstract

This study aimed to examine digital games with STEM content played by children aged 60–72 months from an educational point of view and determine how parents use the active co-playing strategy in playing these games. The study was carried out using a basic qualitative research design due to the nature of qualitative research. The participants in the study were volunteers and were selected according to specific criteria using purposeful sampling. The survey and questionnaire forms developed by (Gözüm and Kandır in Educ Inf Technol 26:3293–3326, 2021) were used in the study. Data on digital games were collected using the document analysis technique. Content analysis was used to determine the content of digital games. In contrast, descriptive analysis was used for the parents’ data for the active co-playing strategy. Expert review was used to assess the reliability of the themes obtained from descriptive and content analysis. Themes were determined using the codes and categories derived from content analysis and expert review. According to the study results, it was concluded that the children of the parents who use the active co-playing strategy played at least one STEM game. These results also show which digital games with STEM content support the development of children’s skills and explain how parents use the active co-playing strategy. Due to the nature of qualitative research, there are limitations to making generalizations in this study. Important suggestions have been made for parents, researchers, and digital game developers.

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  1. Basic Education Department of Preschool Education, The University of Kafkas, Center campus, 36100, Kars, Turkey

    Ali İbrahim Can Gözüm

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  1. Ali İbrahim Can Gözüm
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Correspondence to Ali İbrahim Can Gözüm .

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  1. Department of Preschool Education, University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece

    Stamatios Papadakis

  2. Department of Preschool Education, University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece

    Michail Kalogiannakis

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Gözüm, A.İ.C. (2022). Digital Games for STEM in Early Childhood Education: Active Co-playing Parental Mediation and Educational Content Examination. In: Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M. (eds) STEM, Robotics, Mobile Apps in Early Childhood and Primary Education. Lecture Notes in Educational Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0568-1_21

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