Design and development of educational e-textiles to support executive function skills of preschool children

Executive Functions (EFs) have a critical role in being healthy, successful, productive, and flexible individuals. EFs show tremendous development through early childhood years; thus, supporting these skills in this period is highly important. This study aims to design, develop, and implement game-based educational systems that support EFs and curriculum-related objectives. E-textile technology has been utilized to develop these games since it enables building bodily interactive games and turning everyday objects into interactive interfaces. In this regard, two types of materials, a non-wearable e-textile material used as a desktop activity and two wearable e-textile materials that interact with three digital games on a tablet PC, were designed and developed. The study was carried out using Design-Based Research (DBR) as the methodology. The research was conducted in two cycles with six ECE teachers and ten preschool children participated in Cycle 1, and three teachers and nine children participated in Cycle 2. Children were video-recorded while engaging with the activities, teachers were interviewed, and the researcher’s design notes were used to answer research questions. The qualifications and limitations of the utilized e-textile technologies and suggestions regarding educational use of these technologies are presented within the scope of the study. The results also indicated design features that might be associated with EFs using children’s performances and gameplay features.