The influence of infant and toddler teachers on media and their perception of media education

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to discover the media influence and perception of media education for infants and toddlers. Research questions for this were set as infant teachers' perception of media and infant teachers' perception of media education. Methods: For this study, a preliminary survey was conducted after composing a questionnaire through related prior research and literature analysis. This survey was conducted by wireless sampling infant teachers working in educational fields in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and distributing data face-to-face and non-face-to-face from September 28, 2022, to October 31, 2022. A total of 290 copies of data were collected, but 268 copies of data were finally selected excluding twenty-two copies of unfaithful responses. For the collected data, frequency analysis, mean, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis were calculated according to the research questions using SPSS 29.0. Results: When the research results were presented according to the research questions, first, the media was recognized as affecting infants and toddlers. The biggest positive influence was the convenient acquisition of information and knowledge to solve questions in infancy when curiosity was high, and the biggest negative influence was to imitate the wrong actions and words of characters appearing in the media. In addition, among various media, digital media had an enormous influence and print media such as newspapers and magazines were recognized as having little influence. Second, there was a need for media education for infants and toddlers, and the leader of media education was recognized as a teacher. In addition, it was recognized that the most important goal of media education is to cultivate the habit of responsible and safe use of media. Conclusion: In conclusion, infant and toddler teachers should be able to use media in terms of education in consideration of its positive and negative influences. In addition, it is required that media education programs for infants and toddlers in development should reflect changes in the digital media environment, and it is necessary to cultivate teachers' capacity for media education through educational training for teachers.