Adoption of Mobile Technology in Teaching Moral Values to Children: A Study in Malaysia

In today's modern society, many parents are busy building a successful career and it is very common that there are many young families with both parents working. Hence, the young children of such families will be placed in day-care centres or they are looked after by their grandparents and maids. Working parents would not be spending much quality time with their children and providing them with moral guidance. This group of children, if not given adequate and proper guidance, would not know much about good moral values. There are also children who grow up around people who do not practise good moral values and commit all types of wrongdoings such as cheating, stealing, bullying, being selfish, greedy, uncaring and ill-treating animals. It is easy for children to be influenced by such actions and behaviours. Therefore, this research plans to assist in imparting moral values to children by using the concept of 'edutainment' with the use of a mobile application. Based on the results collected in this research, the application is fully functional without any bugs because all the respondents who took part in the testing of the application were able to launch the application on their mobile phones successfully. The results also show that the mobile application is well received by both parents and the children and it has been effective in helping children aged 4 to 9 to have a better understanding of moral values.