Profiles and predictors of young children’s digital literacy and multimodal practices in central China

Research Findings: There are heated debates about the benefits and risks of
using digital devices in the early years. This study explored the latent profiles
and the associated predictors of digital literacy and multimodal practices in
Chinese children to understand how children use and interact with digital
devices at home. A total of 1953 parents were recruited from a province in
central China and surveyed about their children’s digital literacy and multimodal
practices. The results indicated that: (1) all the children had access to
a variety of digital technologies at home, with the most common digital
practices being watching TV and using smartphones; (2) three latent classes
of digital families were yielded: Low-level Profile (62.9% of the sample),
Middle-level Profile (36.3%), and High-Level Profile (0.8%); and (3) child age,
location and family annual income, home digital resources, parental beliefs,
and parental mediation could significantly predict young children’s digital
literacy and their multimodal practice at home, respectively. Practice or
Policy: The findings imply that there are remarkable within-group differences
in early digital literacy and multimodal practices, primarily caused by family
SES and parental factors. More attention should be paid to low SES families
and parental education to narrow the digital divide in Chinese children.