Effect of the New Digital Era on Child Development: Case Study of the Teachers of Gateway Nursery and Primary School, Entebbe

Abstract

This research examined the effects of the new digital era on child development in Uganda taking a case study of the teachers of Gateway nursery and primary school Entebbe. The study was carried out with the main objective of studying the effect of digital technology in the development of children and with the specific objectives to examine the effect of digital technology on children’s mental well-being, to examine the effect of digital technology on children’s social wellbeing and to determine the effect of digital technology on children’s participation in physical activities The study adopted a cross – sectional design with a sample of size of 50 respondents comprising of teachers of the school using simple random sampling technique and analysis was done using SPSS and both Univariate and Bivariate level. The study revealed that there was a significant relationship between mental wellbeing and digital technology at P = 0.00<0.05 that is to say children can learn through exploration with technology in every school subject and that children learn so much through having access to a computer or mobile phone. There was also a relationship between social wellbeing and child development at P = 0.00 and since this value is less than 0.05, the researcher rejected the null hypothesis. The results on the relationship between physical wellbeing and digital technology indicated that there is a significant relationship between these two variables since P = 0.00<0.05 hence the null hypothesis was rejected that is to say, the study also revealed that Children can acquire new technological skills via playing with computers, technology can be used to enhance and support children’s play and that children actively engage in co-curricular after class activities. The researcher recommends that media organizations and other companies should tailor more tutor-related programs to increase children participation, government should motivate schools to incorporate more computer related educational programs to boost learner participation and all technology used by children in a particular age range should be adult-guided and more time given to free play by parents.