Is There a Gap to Mind in Preschool Practice When it Comes to Technology?

Research has indicated that there may be a gap between preschool teachers’ general descriptions of technology and thetechnology content in their actual preschool practices. This study investigates this further and, if a gap is found, looks forpossible reasons for it. The study was conducted in the form of research circles in two Swedish municipalities with 19technology-minded preschool teachers. A mixed research design was used. The starting point for mapping the preschoolteachers’ descriptions of technology was an established questionnaire that placed technology into five categories. Followingthis, the teachers independently documented events at their preschools that they assessed as technology activities. The findingswere that the most commonly chosen category in the questionnaire was technology as a solution to a problem. However, intheir everyday examples the dominant activities related to the children’s attempts to use the artefacts. The preschool teacherssaid that the children had to be introduced to the artefacts, their names and functions, before moving on to more advancedlevels describing technology. There is thus a distinction between the preschool teachers’ descriptions of technology and theireveryday practices, where they themselves provide relevant explanations for the gap