Digital technologies in preparing future preschool educators for children's emotional development: Experimental study results

The study presented in the article aims to investigate the effectiveness of using digital technologies in preparing future preschool educators for developing children’s emotional sphere. Modern trends in digital transformation of pedagogical education necessitate the formation of students’ competencies in working with VR simulators of pedagogical situations, artificial intelligence systems for emotion recognition, and adaptive educational platforms. The purpose of the study is to identify key factors influencing future educators’ readiness to use digital tools for preschoolers’ emotional development and to develop an experimentally validated training model. The methodological basis consisted of a quasi-experimental design with control and experimental groups. The empirical base included 118 third-year students majoring in 44.03.01 “Pedagogical Education” (Preschool Education profile) from Melitopol State University. The experiment employed an adapted methodology for diagnosing readiness for children’s emotional development, a digital competence questionnaire for educators, an original methodology for assessing VR simulator skills, and adaptive learning technologies on the Moodle 4.3 platform with AI assistant integration for analyzing pedagogical cases. The study results demonstrate a statistically significant increase in the cognitive-emotional readiness component in the experimental group by 28.7 % with a coefficient of determination R2 = 0.694. A strong positive correlation was established between digital competence level and readiness for children’s emotional development (r = 0.812, p < 0.001). The practice-activity component showed an increase of 28.5 % versus 2.9 % in the control group. Retention of achieved changes was 91.3 % after three months. The regression model identified initial digital competence as the most significant predictor of success (β = 0.421, p < 0.001). The theoretical significance of the study lies in expanding understanding of psychological and pedagogical mechanisms for forming professional readiness to use digital technologies in preschool education. The practical value is determined by the possibility of applying the developed model to improve the effectiveness of educator training programs. VR simulators of pedagogical situations showed particular effectiveness (r = 0.746 with readiness), justifying their priority implementation in the training process.