The overall aim of TYKES is to explore the role of YouTube Kids and similar video-sharing platforms (VSPs) as key locations of early years digital literacy development. We are working with parents, young children and early years practitioners in Norfolk to map the uses, concerns, and engagements with these digital spaces. Ultimately, the project will develop research publications, as well as working with parents, children, local nurseries, and libraries to develop early years digital literacy training based around the findings, alongside resources to develop critical understandings of digital literacy.
If you would like to know more or have any questions/ queries, please get in touch with Dr. Harry Dyer at harry.t.dyer@uea.ac.uk.
June 2023-December 2023
Lead: Simon Hammond
The aim of the scoping review is to examine and map the range of peer-reviewed research available on young children’s use of YouTube Kids and other video sharing platforms (VSP), and how families/carers, educators, and civil society actors experience this. Work Package 1 will also help develop a critical understanding of the research in the field and the complexities of early years digital literacies.
November 2023 –August 2024.
Leads: Harry Dyer, Elizabeth Scholefield
Drawing on themes identified in Work Package 1, this work package aims to explore the ways families/carers, practitioners, and young children engage with video sharing platforms (VSP) such as YouTube Kids. This includes observing how young children engage with VSP, & exploring how children, families/carers, and early years practitioners feel about VSP.
August – November 2024.
Leads: Harry Dyer, Kate Stewart
Here, we will explore key themes and ideas present in content on YouTube Kids and other relevant VSP. The videos will be drawn from three areas:
Content that families/carers and children engaged with as identified in Work Package 2.
The most watched videos at the time of data collection.
Algorithmic recommendations in YouTube Kids.
Nov 2024 - June 2025
Leads: Harry Dyer, Simon Hammond
This work package will translate our data from Work Packages 1-3 into guidance and user-guides that stakeholders (children, families/carers, community actors, early years practitioners) can use to inform their digital literacies and lived experiences of VSP, YouTube Kids and online content for young children more broadly.
Project update - July 2024
The project team were delighted to share news of how the research is progressing at the International UKLA conference in Brighton. Here are the slides from the presentation.