Description

Background

Interactive electronic devices (IEDs), which the researchers define as any portable screen, such as tablets or mobile phones, are ubiquitous in young children's lives, with 90% of children aged 3-4 years going online. National and international guidelines report a lack of understanding around the family circumstances of when young children are using such devices, limiting recommendations. Few studies have focused on how and when young children use IEDs, and fewer still explore the socioeconomic relationship and IED use of children (Arabiat et al., 2023; Radesky et al., 2020). In conversations with early years practitioners, parents and policymakers, they recognise IEDs as a valuable resource for early years learning, observing how most families from all backgrounds now allow their children to use IEDs (Azevedo et al., 2025). However, what is unknown is how children and their parents are using IEDs and whether there is an observable difference or indeed what circumstances increase or reduce IED usage.

Few studies have examined the experience of young children engaging in screen-based activities.

Studies found that parents advise children to use devices for multiple purposes, such as education and distraction, particularly when parents need to do household chores (Bentley et al., 2016). Studies have also reported contrasting views on the need to establish rules, while many agreed that mobile devices are an unavoidable part of modern life (Kabali et al., 2015).

However, to date, the researchers are unaware of any study that has observed children in their home environment to better understand their behaviours and interactions with mobile devices.

Research Aim:

This study aims to explore how young children (aged 3-5) use interactive electronic devices like tablets or smartphones in their everyday home environment. The researchers will look at the social, family, and environmental factors that shape this use.

Main research question: What is the context and nature of interactions in which children use IEDs in their home environment?

1. How do young children aged 3-5 use interactive electronic devices within the routines and relationships of their family home?
2. In what ways do family structure, financial circumstances, and cultural background influence the nature and context of children's IED use?
3. How do parents perceive the role of IED in supporting or challenging their caregiving practices, including supervision, learning, and daily household management?

   Methods

This ethnographic study will adopt a qualitative and pragmatic approach (Morgan, 2014), to explore the social, familial and environmental contexts in which young children use interactive electronic devices (IEDs) at home.

The researchers will employ video-reflexive ethnography (VRE), which combines video ethnography - capturing routine behaviours and interactions of children using IEDs in the home - with video-reflexivity, involving interviews with parents to reflect on these behaviours (Korstjens et al., 2021). Video recordings will provide rich data on children's practices and behaviours related to IED use (Manojlovich et al., 2019), offering access to verbal and non-verbal communication (Risley and Hart, 1968) and insights into the interplay of multiple communication channels (Heath et al., 2007). Engaging parents/carers in interpreting these observations will enhance the visibility of these interactions and allow reflection on the child's lived experiences (Gordon et al., 2017).

Participants and Recruitment:

Eligible families must have a child aged 3-5 years with no diagnosed developmental disorders. The study will be promoted using posters placed in family-oriented locations such as libraries, community centres, family hubs, and leisure centres. To ensure socioeconomic diversity, nurseries, family hubs, and community centres will be selected from areas in both the highest and lowest IMD quintiles in the West Yorkshire region. The researchers aim to recruit 20 parents/carers - 10 from low-income areas and 10 from high-income areas.

Families will be provided with contact details for the lead researcher and reassured that they may withdraw from the study at any time. This process prioritises openness, trust, and informed consent.

As this study is part of a wider NIHR -funded research project, the researchers will use the contacts established with different stakeholders (Local Authorities, Early Years Settings) and participants to advertise and recruit participants.

Parents/carers of children aged 3-5 are directed to a weblink where they can read more about the study and express interest to meet the researcher and learn more about the study. Parents/carers will be offered to meet ahead of agreeing to partake in the research and given the opportunity to ask any questions they have, learn more about the research project, and meet the researcher who will be coming into their home to place the cameras and interview them.

A recent systematic review (Hennink \& Kaiser, 2022) suggests that 9-17 interviews are sufficient for relatively homogeneous populations, although some argue that sample size should be determined during analysis. Taking a pragmatic approach, the researchers believe this sample size will allow us to reach thematic saturation.

To better understand participant demographics, the researchers will collect data on age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, parenthood, and years of education as well as additional demographic information - such as family structure, cultural background, and financial and educational context. The questionnaire will also ask about the child's and parent's own use of interactive electronic devices by using the screen Q and SAS-SV questionnaires. A combined version of these questionnaires will be sent to parents before the camera is placed in their home. The answers to the questionnaire will guide the interview questions and prompt conversation around the observations from the video and sound recordings.

Data Collection, Processing, and Analysis:

Video recording within the home environment presents several challenges, including its resource-intensive nature, potential influence on participant behaviour (Asan and Montague, 2014), and concerns around privacy (Everri et al., 2020). To address these issues thoughtfully and ethically, the researchers will begin with family engagement meetings, where they will discuss key topics such as participant rights, data anonymisation, privacy protection, and the intended use of recorded material.

Recognising the sensitive nature of placing a camera in the family home, the researchers will also offer families the opportunity for individual follow-up meetings after the group engagement sessions. These one-to-one conversations - held in a location of the participant's choosing, such as a local café or community space - are intended to foster trust and build rapport between researchers and families. By creating a more informal and personalised setting, the researchers hope to support open dialogue and ensure families feel comfortable and confident in their participation.

A video camera will be placed in a communal room (e.g., a sitting room) within the family home for a period of seven days. However, to minimise self-consciousness and reduce the impact of observation on behaviour, recording will only take place during the final three days - ideally, over two weekdays and one weekend day. Parents and carers will be actively involved in determining the most appropriate location for the camera, ensuring it is placed in a space where the child spends time and feels comfortable.

To maintain flexibility and reduce intrusiveness, the family will have the ability to turn the camera on and off or cover the camera lens. If any footage is captured that parents feel is inappropriate or outside the scope of the study, they may request its removal. To facilitate this, families will be provided with a diary and a deletion request form. These tools will allow parents to note specific times and dates they wish to exclude from the final dataset - for example, if the camera was left on after the child stopped using the IED. Alternatively, requests can be submitted during the data processing stage, and the relevant clips will be removed without being viewed.

During data processing, a member of the research team will review all footage and automatically delete any segments where the child is not present. This approach ensures that only relevant interactions are retained and respects the privacy and autonomy of participating families.

Interview transcripts and video data will be anonymised during analysis, with names and other identifying details removed or replaced with pseudonyms. Only the research team at Sheffield Hallam University will have access to identifiable data.

All data will be stored securely on encrypted devices and institutional servers, in accordance with the Data Protection Act (2018). Anonymised data will be archived in the Sheffield Hallam Research Data Archive for up to 10 years following the last third-party access request. Paper documents will be stored in locked cabinets and securely disposed of at the end of the retention period. Participants may withdraw at any time, and their data can be removed up until June 2026.

From the recordings, the researchers will select up to ten 3-minute clips featuring the child interacting with IEDs and family or friends. The PI and RF will review these clips, asking "What is 'this' an example of?" and use open coding to develop themes (Khandkar, 2009). A subsample size of 20% of the video footage will be reviewed by two other members of the research team, offering opportunity for agreement on what the researchers are looking before moving on to the full sample. Rather than simply describing events, researchers will interpret the meaning behind them (Goldman, 2014).

These clips will be shown to parents/carers during reflective semi-structured interviews, allowing them to share their interpretations. Interviews will follow a guide with open-ended questions, informed by the completed questionnaire, using reflective listening. To promote reflexivity, the researchers will pause the video at key moments and ask interview questions.

Each interview will last approximately 60-90 minutes, be digitally recorded with consent, and transcribed verbatim. Identifiable information will be removed, and pseudonyms assigned to ensure confidentiality. Transcripts will be imported into Nvivo 12 for analysis.

The researchers will use inductive thematic analysis to interpret the data (Clarke et al., 2015), acknowledging that researchers' prior knowledge may influence theme development (Maggs-Rapport, 2000). To mitigate this, four members of the research team will review at least 20% of the same videos before coming to an agreement of what to measure and the PI and RF will then independently conduct the analysis over the rest of the videoclips and then will convene to discuss emerging themes. The researchers will include extensive participant quotations to support transparency and allow readers to interpret the findings (Eldh et al., 2020).

Data from both the video ethnography and the video-reflexivity interviews will be integrated to provide a rich, contextual understanding of how young children engage with interactive electronic devices (IEDs) and how parents/carers interpret and respond to this use. The video ethnography will offer direct observational insights into children's behaviours, interactions, and environments, while the reflexive interviews will add depth by capturing parental perspectives, contextual explanations, and emotional responses to the footage.

To ensure transparency and rigour in reporting, the researchers will explicitly describe how these two data sources are merged during the analysis phase. This will include outlining the process of cross-referencing coded video segments with interview transcripts, identifying converging and diverging themes, and explaining how parental interpretations either reinforce or challenge the observational data. This triangulation will strengthen the validity of our findings and allow us to explore the interplay between observed behaviour and parental meaning-making (Skivington et al., 2021).

In the researchers final reporting, they will include a dedicated section detailing the data integration strategy, including examples of how specific video observations were interpreted and expanded upon through parental interviews. This will help readers understand the analytical process and the rationale behind theme development, ensuring clarity and coherence in how the findings are presented.