Children, Technology and Play

Children, Technology and Play was an 8-month co-produced study by academics from the University of Sheffield, UK, and University of Cape Town, South Africa, the LEGO Foundation and Dubit. The study aimed to explore the contemporary play environments of children in order to identify the ways in which their play is shaped by technology, to examine the relationship between digital play, learning and creativity, and to explore the role of adults in mediating digital play.


1) Online survey (undertaken by Dubit) of 2429 families from across the UK with children aged 3-11. The survey comprised a structured sample to ensure distribution across age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic class and geography. A copy of the survey is available in the Research Tools deposit.

2) Case studies of 10 families in Sheffield with focus children aged 3-11. Each family was visited six times at home by two researchers over a period of five months and a range of qualitative research methods was employed: audio interviews; researcher observations; filming and photography by children (using GoPro cameras), parents and researchers; play diaries (for drawing, writing, pasting etc); concept mapping. Children were invited to create a toy of the future out of LEGO and families led researchers on a ‘techno-play tour’ of their homes. The focus children were also observed at a regular after-school club or community venue they visited and using technology in school. In each case, the child’s class teacher and the community/after-school club leader were audio-interviewed as well.

3) Focus groups with 71 children (37 boys and 34 girls) aged 5-11 in four primary schools and one secondary school in Sheffield. The schools served demographically diverse communities. The interviews were audio-recorded and the children created collages and concept maps, and built a toy out of LEGO that they would like to be invented.

4) Telephone interviews were conducted with 30 parents of 30 children (15 girls and 15 boys) aged 3-11. The parents were selected from the families who completed the Dubit survey and the interview explored the survey questions in greater depth.

The datasets in the collection are grouped as above with the case study data being sub-divided by format. A spreadsheet with associated metadata is included with each deposit and provides a summary of the content of each file. The data has been anonymised. The spreadsheet detailing the case study families film data shows the content of each film but the films themselves are not open access since they could not be anonymised.

The research tools, comprising the questions used in interviews and fieldwork schedules, have also been deposited, together with a blank copy of the information sheets and consent forms.