Study on the Concept Map of Parental Media Literacy for Early Childhood Media Literacy

Objectives: Media literacy is recognized as an essential competency for adapting to a changing world, and early childhood media literacy is crucial for promoting a safe growth environment. Parental media literacy significantly influences children's media literacy and plays a significant role in providing ways to interact with digital media. This study aimed to understand the concept of media literacy as perceived by parents of young children.Methods: Twenty parents of young children brainstormed and wrote sentences according to the procedure described by Kane and Trochim (2007). Subsequently, 200 parents were asked to evaluate the importance of the selected sentences. The selected sentences were analyzed through multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis using SPSS 27.0.Results: Parents of young children perceived media literacy through concept mapping with two dimensions and six clusters. These six clusters were “online problem solving,” “media usage rules management,” “media content utilization education,” “media information filtering,” “media selection evaluation,” and “media device utilization support.” Among these, the media usage rule management cluster was recognized as the most important, whereas the media device utilization support cluster was recognized as the least important. Among the statements, the statement “For young children, needs to manage media content and time” was considered relatively important, and the statement, “Can look at it and follow it” was considered relatively insignificant.Conclusion: Based on these results, we discuss the importance of media literacy for parents of young children, the development of a media literacy scale for parents, and the preparation of a media literacy education plan for parents.