The Home Learning Environment in the Digital Age-Associations Between Self-Reported "Analog" and "Digital" Home Learning Environment and Children's Socio-Emotional and Academic Outcomes.

Simone Lehrl,Frank Niklas,Susanne Kuger,Anja Linberg

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.592513

Abstract

We analyzed the association between the analog and the digital home learning environment (HLE) in toddlers’ and preschoolers’ homes, and whether both aspects are associated with children’s social and academic competencies. Here, we used data of the national representative sample of Growing up in Germany II, which includes 4,914 children aged 0–5 years. The HLE was assessed via parental survey that included items on the analog HLE (e.g., playing word games, reading, and counting) and items on the digital HLE (e.g., using apps or playing with apps). Children’s socio-emotional, practical life skills, and academic competencies were assessed via standardized parental ratings. Our results indicate that there are two dimensions of the HLE, an analog and a digital, that are slightly positively associated, especially in the toddler age group. For toddlers, only analog HLE activities were associated with better socio-emotional outcomes and practical life skills. However, interaction effects indicate that toddlers with less frequent analog HLE activities showed better socio-emotional skills in households with more frequent digital activities. For preschoolers, digital HLE activities were associated with weaker socio-emotional skills but higher academic skills, although the analog HLE shows higher effect sizes for the academic outcomes. Our study points out that analog and digital HLE activities seem to be partly associated, but not interchangeable. Further, they seem to be important variables that can explain individual differences in young children’s socio-emotional, practical life, and academic competencies. However, digital media usage at home may also have negative effects on children’s social–emotional competencies. This association needs to be investigated further.

Highlights

It is becoming increasingly evident that the nature of activities in the home learning environment (HLE) in the digital age of the 21st century is rapidly changing in terms of the resources available and the ways in which these resources are used in different contexts (Marsh et al, 2005)
The present study investigates the following: (1) The frequency of shared digital media activities, referred to as digital HLE, in the home from an early age on, to discover the prevalence of shared digital media use in the home, (2) How these aspects of digital HLE are associated with the analog HLE, to investigate a possible shift from analog to digital home learning environmental activities, (3) How digital HLE and analog HLE are associated with concurrent child academic and socio-emotional outcomes, and
We first explored whether digital and analog HLEs can be differentiated into two separate dimensions

Summary

Introduction

It is becoming increasingly evident that the nature of activities in the home learning environment (HLE) in the digital age of the 21st century is rapidly changing in terms of the resources available and the ways in which these resources are used in different contexts (Marsh et al, 2005). As children’s immediate caregivers usually interact with digital media daily, children consider digital devices as very important (Wirth et al, 2020b). Toddlers and preschoolers learn by observing their parents and by interacting with older siblings, and from an early age onward, they are in contact with a wide range of digital tools daily and imitate older family members’ usage (Wong, 2015). About a third of the children aged 0–3 years already participate in computer- and internet-based activities at home, regularly (Palaiologou, 2016). Given that children use digital media from an early age onwards, these tools can be utilized to support children’s competencies development

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