Impact of Electronic Stories on the Development of Touristic Awareness for Kindergarten Children

Touristic awareness for kindergarten children is a neglected subject in early childhood research, although the importance of cultural and social impact on the children’s national identity, sense of belonging and loyalty to the homeland. Accordingly, we aimed to examine the impact of electronic stories, which identify the most important touristic elements of Saudi Arabia, on developing touristic awareness among kindergarten children. The study used an experimental approach, wherein a touristic awareness pictorial scale had been developed for a randomly chosen sample of 60 kindergarten children (boys and girls). The aforementioned scale had been applied before and after on the sample of study. A number of electronic stories of the most important historical and touristic elements of Saudi Arabia had been designed and presented to the children who were divided into two groups experimental and control (each of 30 children; 5-6 years old). The results revealed that the proposed electronic stories are of great effectiveness on developing the children’s touristic awareness and in turn sense of belonging and loyalty to their homeland. Keywords: Electronic stories; Kindergarten; Touristic awareness; Historical awareness; Children; Saudi Arabia DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-27-06 Publication date: September 30 th 2023