The Relationship between Information Literacy and Developmental Trends in Early Childhood
Jun Oh Jo , Hae Ik Hwang
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the information literacy of preschoolers and their developmental trends. The subjects in this study were 122 preschoolers. After taking tests in information literacy and early childhood development, the collected data was analyzed. The findings of the study were as follows: First, there were gaps among the preschoolers in the level of early childhood development according to the relative levels of their information literacy. When a post-hoc analysis was carried out to investigate intergroup differences in detail, there were statistically significant gaps between the preschoolers with excellent information literacy and those with intermediate- or poor information literacy, and between the preschoolers with intermediate information literacy and those with poor information literacy. Second, the differences in terms of the levels of information literacy and the impact these differences made to their body, cognition, language, sociability and emotions which comprise the five subfactors of the early childhood development inventory were checked after the mutual influence of the five subfactors was controlled. As a result, statistically significant gaps were apparent in all the subfactors of early childhood development according to relative levels of information literacy. The preschoolers who had a better level of information literacy exhibited a statistically significantly better level of development in every subfactor.