DiPA-KOM Research Recap 2025

With 2025 marking the beginning of the ERDF-funded research project DiPA-KOM, the project team looks back on a productive year in which it was able both to lay the theoretical foundations for insightful research and to open up the practical field through initial data collection.

With our interdisciplinary approach, which combines computer science with the fields of childhood studies and media education, we aim to explore new ways of gaining access to children’s perspectives on their individual (digital) lifeworlds. The insights gained from this are intended to help provide better guidance and appropriate support for children in their transition from daycare to (primary) school. From an educational theory perspective, this process is also intended to conceptually promote and sustainably strengthen the fields of democracy education and media education.

In the first phase of the research, the focus was initially on the lifeworld of kindergarden. Thanks to the close collaboration with committed provider organizations and institutions in the Magdeburg area, we had the opportunity to visit several kindergarden and conduct research there. In addition to observations of everyday kindergarden life and interviews with management staff, a “STEM parcours” designed by the project team was carried out with the children in several kindergarden during a planned data collection phase in summer 2025.

At the various experimental stations of this STEM parcours, which we were able to set up in the kindergarden facilities, the children explored and experimented with a wide range of analog and digital media in a playful way. In addition, the aspects of children’s rights and participation were a central focus and were addressed together with the children within the framework of democracy education.

The conversations held with the children during this process, as well as the observations of their activities and explorations, provided us with valuable insights for the subsequent phases of the research.

At the conclusion of the data collection and analysis phase, the project team presented and discussed its initial findings, among other venues, at the workshop conference of the Empirie AG of the Commission “Pedagogy of Early Childhood” (DGfE) at Alanus University in Alfter.

Several presentations of our interim results in the “Kindergarden” and “Transition” working groups of the City of Magdeburg accompanied the research activities and enabled a productive exchange with professionals, managers, and representatives of the Magdeburg city administration.

In a workshop organized by the project, the results were also presented to research and practice partners as well as other interested participants in the rooms of the Magdeburg University Library. The workshop was primarily aimed at children and offered them a revised and expanded STEM parcours with several experimental stations, including a guided library tour. Approximately 120 children from five kindergarden facilities and 50 adults — including educational professionals, managers, parents, researchers, and students — took part with great enthusiasm and curiosity.

In 2026, the project will extend its research to the lifeworld of school, beginning with primary school and after-school care. Subsequently, the lifeworlds of children in their homes and families will also be brought into focus and linked thematically with the findings relating to the other areas of life already studied, namely kindergarden and school.