Early Childhood Digital Pedagogy: A Scoping Review of Its Practices, Profiles, and Predictors

Abstract

Early childhood digital pedagogy (ECDP) has been widely implemented and studied, but the empirical evidence has not been systematically reviewed. This scoping review aimed to synthesize the existing studies to understand the practices and profiles of ECDP and the redefined roles of teacher, child, and technology. Thirty-eight studies on ECDP published from January 2010 to October 2024 were collected from three academic databases: EBSCO, Web of Science, and ProQuest. Synthesis of the findings of these studies revealed that: Firstly, digital technologies increasingly hold transformative potential for instructional practices at the level of modification and redefinition based on the SAMR framework. Secondly, play-based, project-based, problem-based, and co-operative and collaborative pedagogy with constructivist tendencies are the trademarks of ECDP. Lastly, in pedagogical interactions, teachers, children, and digital technologies each play diverse roles. This review study sheds some light on the practical characteristics of ECDP, which can inspire the effective designs and implementation of ECDP in the future.