Parents’ perceptions about preschool children’s use of mobile devices and experiences at art museums

Abstract: The child–environment interaction type, which involves touching and handling part of collections and displays, is less common in art museums. In addition, art museums demand many behavioural rules from their visitors. The adult caregivers, therefore, prefer that their preschool children participate in child-friendly activity programmes. Children could nonetheless learn by interacting with network technology applications in art museums since the use of digital technologies and mobile devices has become widespread to assist visitors’ learning in museums in general. Therefore, this thesis can relate to Child-Computer Interaction (CCI). This thesis addresses the problem that children often have isolated or separate experiences rather than enjoy regular art exhibitions with accompanying adults. This problem could be tackled by exploring how the child–technology interaction type combined with the child–adults/peers interaction could be considered to better engage children in viewing art exhibitions together with adults. The main research question is ‘what needs adult caregivers have for their preschool children's experience at art museums, that may be met by mobile educational apps?’. The main question can be divided into three parts: what are adult caregivers’ views about 1) their preschool children’s use of mobile devices and 2) educational apps and 3) their experience at art museums? By investigating the research question, this thesis aims to explore the possibility of a mobile activity/guide app that could facilitate combined experiences and collaborative learning for preschool children and their adult caregivers together at art museums. For this thesis, a survey is adopted as a research strategy and a web-based questionnaire as a data collection method to explore the views of parents with preschool children between three and five years old. Non-probability sampling was chosen, and the questionnaire invitation was distributed physically to preschools, in playgrounds, and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden and online to Korean parents. For quantitative data analysis, statistical tests were employed. According to the results, despite the considerable period that preschool children have used mobile devices and the frequency, parents answered that their children always or sometimes need help navigating mobile devices. Parents recognise many benefits of children’s mobile device use but would not encourage the usage. Nevertheless, parents acknowledge the importance of conversational interactions but are unlikely to engage in shared activities. Parents like child-friendly programmes for being entertaining, engaging, age-appropriate, and stimulating for children. To enjoy regular exhibitions with children, parents want touchable objects, a children-friendly atmosphere, and open-to-all or free drop-in activities. It is because parents often struggle to have their children understand and follow the behavioural rules and keep their children interested in and focused on the exhibition. Overall, parents acknowledge the inevitable trend of using mobile devices for their preschool children, even though they are yet hesitant to proactively encourage the usage. Many parents experience difficulties engaging their young children in seeing regular art exhibitions and would like to have interactive elements that attract children’s attention. This thesis is valuable since museum professionals and educational app designers could use this thesis as a knowledge base to develop the app.