The effect of Lithuanian kindergarten teachers’ negative attitudes towards the use of digital technologies on children's digital education

This study analyses the relationship between kindergarten teachers’ negative attitudes towards digital technologies in education and the use of digital technologies in early childhood education. The theoretical analysis confirmed that there is a direct relationship between negative attitudes and educational effectiveness and revealed that there is a lack of understanding of how negative attitudes towards digital technologies in education affect the use of digital technologies in early childhood education. In response to this gap in understanding, we collected empirical data using an online survey of 365 kindergarten teachers working in Lithuania. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) revealed that kindergarten teachers’ negative attitudes towards digital technologies in education had a negative and statistically significant effect on the use of digital technologies in early childhood education and children’s engagement. Negative attitudes had a more strongly expressed direct negative effect on the use of digital technologies in early childhood education than did the teachers’ attitudes towards a lack of digital resources. This finding emphasises the need for training and/or professional development programmes for kindergarten teachers that focus on digital technologies and might increase kindergarten teachers’ self-efficacy in using digital technologies in early childhood education and children’s engagement in education.