The Integration of ICT in the Sustainable Educational Processes of Children’s Emotional Self-Regulation: A Study Contextualised in Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Times

Abstract

This article concerns the analysis and strengthening of children’s emotional self-regulation as a key process in the sustainable and comprehensive educational development of students from 6 to 8 years of age. The objective of the present study was to design a didactic proposal for technological mediation (WhatsApp) that contributes to emotional self-regulation and underpins the sustainable education of children in the context of the prevalence of COVID-19. The research design involved documentation, field, and propositional work. Regarding the documentation design, the content analysis technique of the Institutional Educational Project and the Coexistence Project of an official educational institution located in Bogotá, Colombia, were used. Regarding the field design, the survey technique was applied through a structured questionnaire for populations made up of second grade primary school students, parents, and teachers of the institution. Among the main results, it stands out that the prevalence of COVID-19 and its post-pandemic implications have generated greater use of available technologies, such as the WhatsApp application, evidencing a positive relationship between the level of emotional self-regulation of children and its use as a didactic mediation agent. These findings serve as input for the design of the interactive TICSR-WA proposal.

1. Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have gained great relevance day by day because of the constant innovative advances in today’s society, and the educational field is not outside of this influence. Hence, education focused on ICT facilitates the practical training and knowledge sharing of skills, values, and perspectives associated with lifelong learning as a fundamental action of sustainable development. From this perspective, a poorly developed socio-emotional capacity has implications for the emergence of risk behaviours that, in the long term, threaten health, hindering academic and life success. In addition, it encourages an unhealthy sense of identity and belonging to school; this implies that the quality objectives set by the school are not achieved [1].

Based on these challenges, sustainable development is directly related to mediations for learning, as well as mechanisms and appropriate methodologies that guarantee the use of technologies such as WhatsApp, to offer platforms as well as mobile technologies that enable support for emotional management and self-regulation, bridging communication gaps, both for students and teachers. Therefore, access to quality education improves significantly by putting these technological resources and training opportunities at the service of the school community [2].

In this sense, when this socio-emotional capacity has not been fully developed, risky behaviour can occur, which, in the long term, damages health and hinders professional success, as well as social participation. In addition, it undermines the healthy sense of identity and belonging to the school; this implies that the objectives set by the school are not achieved [3]. The authors of [4,5] affirm that Latin America is the region with the most integration of ICT in different areas of human affairs, including education. An example of this is Colombia being one of the most active countries incorporating ICT in education, despite the difficulties inherent to this process, such as the access, connectivity, and availability of resources

Based on these ideas, this research was conducted in order to respond to the need for comprehensive training of students, such as regarding their socio-emotional development, through a proposal that involves ICT and specifically children’s emotional self-regulation during the transformative timeframe of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected traditional school dynamics [6]. In emerging scenarios, it is a priority to ensure agreement with education for sustainable development, thereby enriching the development of 21st-century skills through techno-pedagogical proposals that are framed in an interdisciplinary and holistic approach, focused on active, contextualised, transferable, and autonomous learning, which enables inclusive and transformative pedagogical practises linked to dimensions of life that maximise the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) [7]. Based on previous approaches, it is assumed that didactic methods mediated by mobile technologies such as WhatsApp contribute to the emotional self-regulation of school-age children, which enables access to emotional support in complex situations such as during the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic period, which affect learning and therefore the quality of education.

To analyse the empirical component of the research, an official educational institution in Bogotá, Colombia, at the primary school level, second grade, was the research setting, where students continued their learning under the “learn at home strategy” using the instant messaging application WhatsApp as the main channel of school communication due to its massive and intuitive use in the context of the institution.

1.1. Generalities and Objectives of the Study

Based on information and communication technologies (ICTs), the effects of didactic mediation for sustainability, as a fundamental and significant tool of the educational process in the context of the emergence and prevalence of COVID-19, are associated with school communication with students in accordance with the use, management, and appropriation of ICT accessible and available during unexpected situations, enabling the teaching–learning process to be carried out remotely [8].

In this sense, this study was developed based on the following general and specific objectives: to design a didactic proposal for technological mediation (WhatsApp) that contributes to emotional self-regulation and underpins the sustainable education of children during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the post-pandemic period. Therefore, it is important to (1) analyse, from a conceptual, theoretical perspective, the processes of children’s emotional self-regulation in the field of primary basic education; (2) substantiate the relevance of the didactic mediation of ICTs within the framework of the educational policy that guides school processes and describe public primary school strategies in the context of the emergence and prevalence of COVID-19; (3) define the structural and operational components of a teaching proposal based on the use of WhatsApp that contribute to the emotional self-regulation of children; and (4) evaluate, through triangulation processes, the proposal for a teaching intervention mediated by technology (WhatsApp) that supports emotional self-regulation processes for sustainable education.

1.2. Literature Review

1.2.1. Children’s Emotional Self-Regulation in the School Environment and Its Implications for Sustainable Education

Teachers of the 21st century have a great challenge of changing the perspective of education focused on the teaching–learning process of knowledge, transcending the academic component; for this, it is necessary to have the ability to help their students acquire knowledge from their own emotions and regulate them, identify those of their peers, and prevent the harmful effects of negative emotions through self-motivation and knowledge of them [9,10]. ESD is aimed at training students in the use of ICT as a basis for managing emotions and transforming themselves and their society. This is the reason why you must develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes, competencies, and values necessary to face global challenges and contextual, current, and future challenges.

Based on these approaches, it is considered that emotional education, according to [11] is a “continuous and permanent educational process that aims to enhance the development of emotional competencies as an essential component of the integral development of the person” (p. 96). For this purpose, the development of knowledge and skills about emotions is proposed, in order to train the individual to prepare for the challenges in their daily life, with the aim of increasing personal and social well-being [12]. For this reason, one of the teachers’ tasks is to have a documentary vision of the different perspectives of the theories of knowledge regarding this topic, to know how to face the situations that arise daily with students [13].

1.2.2. ICT Didactic Mediation for Children’s Emotional Self-Regulation

In today’s society, knowledge, built from the relationship between ICT and education for sustainability, has been a widely studied topic, and, although the efforts made to introduce ICT into education have focused on technology, separating the pedagogical component, in this sense, it is relevant to relate ICT with education through the configuration of new learning environments, where key aspects of the construction process reformulate their function [14,15,16]. In this study, the integration of ICT in education will be addressed as didactic mediation, whose goal is the transformation of educational practise for its improvement [17]. Therefore, the role that technologies play to “complement, enrich and transform education” is corroborated, as stated by the United Nations Educational Organisation [18] in its goal to advance towards Sustainable Development Goal number four: “ensure inclusive, equitable, quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. From this perspective, it is assumed that the main basis on which a real integration of technological tools in the classroom can be achieved requires an inclusive vision and a methodological transformation, in which the teacher assumes new roles as a guide and supervisor throughout the teaching process, with greater involvement in sustainability, promoting healthy lifestyles, which implies the management and self-regulation of emotions. In fact, the teacher is now able to promote processes that improve communication, participation, and the empowerment of minorities or marginalised groups [19].

The above implies a commitment by teachers to structure learning environments that include didactic strategies mediated by ICT and to avoid the mistake of reducing ICT to a simple tool for accessing and transmitting information. As mentioned by [14], a network learning environment is a space or community organised in order to achieve learning. For this environment to take place, certain components are required: a pedagogical function (which refers to learning activities, teaching situations, learning materials, support and tutoring put into play, and evaluation); the technology appropriate to it (which refers to the tools selected in connection with the pedagogical model); and the organisational framework (which includes not only the organisation of the space, the calendar, and the management of the community but also the institutional framework and strategy implementation) [20,21].

The teaching strategies mediated by ICT have been widely analysed by different authors and are numerous, taking into account the variants that they can incorporate and that are modified according to the possibilities offered by the available technology and the communicative and interactive possibilities [22]. Therefore, it is possible to find different types of teaching strategies and resources when involving ICT in education. In fact, they can be considered “from those expository strategies, focused on the teacher as a transmitter of knowledge, to the interactive and collaborative ones, which focus on the student, considering the latter as an active part of the teaching-learning process” [14,23]. The latter were not only relevant during the pandemic time but are also relevant in the post-pandemic period.

1.2.3. Educational Technology in Relation to Socio-Emotional Processes

Technology is the new learning alternative according to [24] that allows for providing better opportunities in the educational field to students to continue with their training process. New learning platforms allow children and young people to interact and socialise with other classmates, where the teacher’s intervention is very important to manage this modality with responsibility and autonomy. It is an effective tool when it has a clear and directed objective [25]. In line with these approaches, we found two of the challenges of the 2030 agenda which manage to interrelate SDG 4 and SDG 9, based on technological innovation, its access, and value from its use in quality education, specifically in what refers to didactics and emotional self-regulation; therefore, digital transformation in the school environment constitutes one of the trends in sustainable education [26].

For a socio-emotional approach to technology in the educational field, the proposal given by [27] is cited, an e-learning model (online teaching and learning through the Internet and technology) of emotional orientation based on the use of emotional states, contextual environments, learning environments, cognitive skills, and learning goals, so that from this information, we can generate appropriate responses for students, personalising the learning system to improve student interaction [12]. In this sequence, [28] states that “training devices, focused on providing personalised attention to individuals in training, require support from a theory that emerges from the characteristics of a personalised approach”, which is different from the traditional approach, going more towards human emotion.

The relevance of designing personalised learning strategies is to promote the well-being of humans, especially in this transcendental moment in history, which has changed all of the behavioural structures of human beings; online learning goes beyond proposing the acquisition of knowledge, facilitate the socio-emotional part of each of the students, who have had to face sudden changes in their life habits [29,30].

From these assertions, the ICTs applied to education in pursuit of quality imply the interactions between teachers, students, and parents; they facilitate collaborative learning and represent paths for emotional self-regulation as a vehicle to provide support by breaking communication barriers, facilitating access to information and improving learning processes from mediation [31].

1.2.4. Mediatised Learning Experience (MLE)

According to [32], “the theory of Mediatised Learning Experience (MLE) explains the function of experiences related to the cognitive development of new generations as an event or a process of creation and modification of a being through transmission or better, the construction of the culture of a people, its values, attitudes, intentions, as proposed by sustainable development, already experienced and carried out by previous generations, in order to obtain a certain desired result” (p. 36). This is how Feuerstein’s theory says that human beings are modifiable, and for this to happen, a mediatiser is necessary, that is, an external interventional strategy that influences and produces desired effects in the mediated being, with the purpose of improving their processes [33]. This system has been implemented in several countries, with the aim of promoting educational development in contemporary multicultural society [34].

The base categories of this theory, Modifiability–Cognitive–Structural, according to what was cited by [32], have conceptual meanings where all of the postulates and objectives that emanate from the individual mediated by the learning experience reside. In this regard, the author states the following:

• Modifiability: “it is said regarding the alterations capable of being produced in the personality, in the way of thinking and in the level of global adaptation of the individual himself where the change occurs in the mediated subject in a lasting, continuous and coherently methodical way in their performance, and being available to the individual when they find themselves in circumstances that require flexibility and adaptation to solve problems” (p. 38)
• Cognitive: It is related to the individual’s ability to know how to use knowledge and experience (acquired learning) to adapt it to new situations that may be complex for their life.
• Structural: A global and integrated system “made up of interconnected and mutually independent elements, with a mental structure to change its way of functioning in a variety of conditions, operating modalities and content domains, a transformation that the individual himself implements, practice through mental operations, tending to develop them in new situations” (p. 39).

Due to this circumstance, the teacher is decisive as a mediator who, according to [35], facilitates the child and young person’s access to the cultural, scientific, historical, moral, and social world. For this reason, it is of great importance to forge individuals of great human quality, for the responsibility and role they will play as social mediators [36]. Consequently, adaptive strategies must be created that allow children and young people to face this globalised world, which is constantly undergoing indescribable and historical changes such as those at this moment in time, with the emergence and prevalence of COVID-19 [29].

1.2.5. WhatsApp: Interactive School Mediation

Recently, the use of technological media around the world has increased considerably; therefore, the relevance of WhatsApp is directly proportional to the rise of mobile phones, which have become centres of mobile information, multimedia file content, and comprehensive communication [37]. But what is WhatsApp? As indicated by [38], it is a free instant messaging application in a multiplatform format that is downloaded and installed on a mobile phone, which allows you to send and receive messages; it has revolutionised, in a very short time, the way we communicate through the mobile phone since it works through Wi-Fi or the same Internet data plan signed up for on each device, depending on the telephone company to which it belongs.

Regarding its educational use, WhatsApp stands out as a versatile, interactive, comfortable, user-friendly, economical, and easy-to-access tool. Its main advantage is that it allows you to receive and send text messages, voice messages, images, audio and video, Internet links, create groups, broadcast lists, and make audio or video calls [39]. Communication occurs both synchronously and asynchronously depending on the person’s needs or access. Thus, several authors agree that “its success is due to a combination of innovation and low cost”. Due to the above, the added value of WhatsApp in the school environment is evident with its properly planned didactic use [40]. Indeed, we are facing an ICT mediation worth considering and integrating into teaching practice, even more so in post-pandemic times [41,42].

1.2.6. Children’s Emotional Self-Regulation Through the Didactic Mediation of ICT in Sustainable Education

According to [43], didactic mediation has as its fundamental principle the belief in the empowerment and perfectibility of every human being, whose objective is to develop autonomy, hence the importance of recognising mediation as a humanising and positive position that improves the individual’s relationship with his or her environment. According to [44], mediation conceived within teaching–learning processes should be interpreted as all those actions that are carried out for the benefit of the teaching and learning processes; such mediations will be represented by the activity, the intervention, and the teaching material that is implemented in the process to improve.

For this reason, the intervention first seeks communication between the student and mediator, in such a way that it facilitates the reasoning and understanding of self-regulation events in children. Teachers, through ICT in sustainable education, can play an important role in facilitating all of the decisive emotions of students. The implementation of ICT didactic mediation for emotional self-regulation can develop and enhance communicative skills to the extent that the student can express their emotions and interactivity between the individual, knowledge, and the environment is promoted [39].

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Research Approach

The epistemological approach that forms the basis of the research on which this article was written is deductive–rationalist since it allows for the structuring, analysis, and reasoning of the structural and operational components of the didactic proposal based on the use of WhatsApp to enable the construction of significant knowledge that contributes to children’s emotional self-regulation [45]. Its specific reference is the didactic mediation of ICT for children’s emotional self-regulation, which is built through the study, agreement, and support of scientific theories, which through reason allow the existing context to be analysed and transformed to respond to the established objectives [46].

This research approach of a mixed nature includes qualitative and quantitative components in order to contribute to the gaps in knowledge, which imply “interaction and empowerment” [47]; likewise, they represent a set of systematic, empirical, and critical research and involve the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, as well as their integration and joint discussion, to make inferences from all of the information collected (meta inferences). Because this is mixed research of a complementary nature, greater depth is achieved by integrating qualitative–quantitative analysis methods to optimise the meanings.

The research method is part of the deductive logical reasoning method in congruence with the deductive rationalist epistemological approach and a critical rationalist paradigm. As stated by [48], this approach applies principles found in the experimental context to specific cases. The role of deduction in research is two-fold: to find unknown principles through known ones and to discover unknown consequences of known principles. For its part, the rationalist–deductive method is conceived as an act of invention based on an eminently logical–rational process, that is, the construct demands the existence of certain inputs represented by a set of events that are processed and transformed into a new product. Consequently, this research allows for a deductive investigation of the object of study through a design organised into three stages, documentary, field, and propositional, as the basis of the categories emotional self-regulation, ICT didactic mediation, and emergence and the prevalence of COVID-19 and its implications in he post-pandemic period.

2.2. Phased Research Design

The descriptive–explanatory, prescriptive, and propositional scope evidenced in the different explicit components in this article (see Figure 1), in accordance with the deductive rationalist method for documentary, field, and propositional design, is described in three phases through the following route:

• Descriptive–Explanatory Phase of the Documentary Design; In this phase, a system of theoretical–conceptual relationships is configured; for this, the levels of construction of scientific knowledge were considered from the reference documents that provide solid content in arguing the situation under study. Initially, a descriptive scope study related to the objectives constitutes the determining input to configure the theoretical system related to the foundation of the processes of children’s emotional self-regulation based on the theories that support said process, the relevance of ICT didactic mediation, and the implementation of government strategies for the provision of educational services during the prevalence of COVID-19 [29,39,49].

Likewise, the analysis of two important documents of the educational institution where the empirical reference or intervention scenario is located is carried out: first, the Institutional Educational Project, (IEP) “Strengthening Communication”, and second, the Coexistence Project “Strengthening an education in socio-emotional and physical health in times of COVID-19”. This analysis is oriented towards the variables of children’s emotional self-regulation, ICT mediation, and emergence and the prevalence of COVID-19, which are contrasted with related theories to verify the assumptions and establish cause–effect relationships between the aforementioned variables.

• Descriptive–Explanatory Phase of Field Design: The techniques and instruments are defined in relation to the variables: child emotional self-regulation, ICT mediation, and emergence and prevalence of COVID-19.
• Prescriptive Phase: This is determined by the should-be of the construct theory given by the descriptive–explanatory analysis of the documentary and field design.
• Proposal Phase: A proposal for ICT didactic mediation is designed that, based on the use of WhatsApp, aims to contribute to children’s emotional self-regulation contextualised in the emergence and prevalence of COVID-19. The methodological components are identified in the following figure:

  Figure 1. Methodological route [49].

  Figure 1. Methodological route [49].

2.3. Description of the Participants

As evidenced in

Table 1. Teachers of the institution under study.

Level	Grade	Morning	Afternoon	Subtotal	Total
Preschool	Kindergarten	1	1	8	60
	Preschool 1	1	1
	Preschool 2	1	1
	Preschool 3	1	1
Basic Primary	First	2	2	20
	Second	2	2
	Third	2	2
	Fourth	2	2
	Fifth	2	2
Basic Secondary	Sixth	2	2	24
	Seventh	2	2
	Eighth	2	2
	Ninth	2	2
	Tenth	2	2
	Eleventh	2	2
	Dance–Art	1	1	8
	Support Teachers	1	1
	Counsellors	2	2

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

and

Table 2. Population sample.

Units of Analysis	Total Population	Sample by Participating Analysis Units	Population Percentage of Participants
A. Students	160	160	100% of the population
B. Parents	160	160	100% of the population
C. Teachers (IED)	63	55	87.3% of the population

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

, the research was carried out in an official or public Educational Institute Distrital (DEI), located in the city of Bogotá D.C., in the town of Bosa, where we worked with three populations, A, B, and C. Population A, made up of 160 s grade students of basic education, comprised children in morning and afternoon primary school, with ages ranging from 6 to 8 years and belonging to the same socioeconomic level; population B, made up of the parents of children in the second grade of primary school, characterised as belonging to the same level of education as the children, level of training, and socioeconomic level; and population C, made up of teachers, with a high professional level and educational experience.

2.4. Techniques and Instruments for Recording and Analysing Data

The content analysis technique was applied to two institutional documents: the first corresponds to the IEP “Strengthening Communication”, and the second corresponds to the Coexistence Project “Strengthening socio-emotional and physical health education in times of COVID 19”. The data collection method according to the qualitative component was documentary; the aforementioned technique was applied through its corresponding instrument, the content analysis matrix, which allows inferences to be made from the document consulted and is directly observable. For [50], this technique is configured as “objective, systematic, qualitative and quantitative that works with representative materials, marked by exhaustiveness and with possibilities of generalisation” (p. 8). In this way, the content analysis matrix is focused on finding “the presence and absence of a characteristic of the content and counts secondary data referring to phenomena to which it is always possible to refer” (p. 9).

Table 3. Scale used in surveys for the population of units A, B, and C.

Population	Graphic Option	Response Alternatives	Value
School life in times of pandemic
A		Yes	1
		More or Less	2
		No	3
Learn at home
B		Agree	3
		Undecided	2
		Disagree	1
School life in times of pandemic. Teaching practice
C		Agree	3
		Undecided	2
		Disagree	1

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

shows the measurement scale used in the questionnaires for the population of units A, B, and C; in this sense, in Questionnaire 1, for population A, called “school life in times of pandemic”, a graphic scale of faces was used in order to facilitate the level of response of the children. For Questionnaire 2, for population B, school life in times of pandemic, the strategy “learn at home” was constructed using a Likert scale with closed questions, with the purpose of coding and tabulating the results. The purpose of the questionnaire was to capture the perception of parents in relation to the proposed strategy. Questionnaire 3, for population C, called “School life in times of pandemic. Teaching practice”, was constructed with affirmative statements with a closed response, using a Likert scale. The purpose of the questionnaire was to demonstrate the teachers’ perceptions regarding the research variables.

2.5. Instrument Reliability

The reliability of the questionnaires applied to the 40 cases or subjects that participated in the pilot test was determined, as shown in

Table 4. Scale used in surveys for the population.

Units of Analysis	Sample Pilot Test
Second Grade Students from District Schools in the Bosa Location	40
Parents of Second Grade Children in District Schools in the Bosa Location	40
DEI Teachers in the Bosa Location	30

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

. The scale used in surveys for the population of units A, B, and C corresponds to the educational intervention “ICT Educational Mediation Proposal: WhatsApp”.

The reliability of the three questionnaires was determined with Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient (α), formulated by Lee J. Cronbach in 1951. In the same way, a scale was proposed with values ranging from 0 to 1, providing values for the α coefficient, with 0 indicating null reliability and values equal to or close to 1 indicating maximum reliability [51]. To test reliability, Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient Indicator was applied to the three questionnaires using the IBM SPSS (V.29, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) statistical computer program. For the first questionnaire corresponding to population A (children in the second grade of primary school), the value of the α obtained is 0.875, which indicates the high consistency of the instrument. For the second questionnaire corresponding to population B (parents in the second grade of primary school), the value of α obtained is 0.83, which indicates the high consistency of the instrument. The analysis of this result is detailed below: for the third questionnaire corresponding to population C (teachers from the educational institution studied), the value of α obtained is 0.83, which indicates the high consistency of the instrument (

Table 5. The value of α from the questionnaires for populations A, B, and C.

Population	Cronbach’s Alpha	Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardised Components	No. of Assertions
A	0.875	0.873	20
B	0.838	0.829	20
C	0.830	0.832	20

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

).

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Results of the Questionnaires A, B, and C

In the questionnaire for population A, 20 statements were established, represented by three (3) options: yes, sometimes, and no. For the Emotional Self-Regulation variable (level of self-control and self-reflection). As shown in Figure 2, the factors that negatively affect students are evident; therefore, 48% of those surveyed perceived the feeling of not having support at home to express their emotions, 53% stated that they did not have control over their emotions due to their bad temper, and 46% were able to recognise their own mistakes. In the same way as the results of the questionnaire for populations B and C, there were 20 statements, with three response options, agree, undecided, and disagree, represented by the previous variables representing the coded values of each of the statements.

In population B, 45% of respondents stated that their children are independently capable of controlling their emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, and anger), That is, they have self-control over their emotions, while 58% responded that their children’s actions are determined by self-reflection, an action that encourages them to assume the consequences of their actions, with self-reflection by the children to analyse the consequences of their actions. These findings reflect the general perception of parents, affirming a good level of socio-emotional development in their children.

In population C, the findings show the factors that most affect this variable. From the teachers’ perception, 53% responded that during the pandemic, students were able to regulate their emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, and anger according to each situation that generated them, while 89% stated that social isolation allowed students to continue with their normal lives without generating stress, anxiety, and emotional tension; on the other hand, 69%, based on self-reflection, indicated that during the pandemic, students improved their reflective thinking in coherence with their school responsibilities. This evidenced the need to integrate strategies into the didactic process in the school context that facilitate emotional self-control and reflective thinking.

In accordance with these results, (Figure 2), our results refer to the regulation that involves the confrontation of facts; hence, it consists of modifying what is felt, regulating exposure to events or situations that provoke emotions. Likewise, the regulation of the processing of external and internal information is based on the modification of interpretations, thoughts, and images, among others, which are activated by emotional events [52].

3.2. Results of the ICT Didactic Mediation Variable (Students–Parents–Teachers)

With respect to the ICT didactic mediation variable (use and appropriation of ICT), six statements were established with three response options each, constituting the students’ perception regarding the degree of use and appropriation of ICT. According to the distribution of those in Figure 3, 4% of those surveyed stated that they frequently use the WhatsApp application as a school mediation agent, as well as having an affinity for it, believing that this instant messaging application is the ideal tool to design and implement a proposal of didactic mediation due to its penetration into the student community. From these results, it can be inferred that emotional regulation is important from the perspective of sustainable education because the way in which emotions are regulated will condition the subjective well-being and quality of life of the actors and in fact education [53,54,55,56].

In population B, statements were established, wherein it was necessary to know the perception of individuals regarding the degree of use and appropriation of ICT. A positive perception of parents regarding the use of technologies was observed, with the parents mainly identifying the school’s use of the WhatsApp application as a tool to promote distance learning and the exchange of information for all actors in the school community. For this reason, the importance of this application is corroborated as a mediating agent for a didactic proposal that contributes to emotional self-regulation.

For population C, 93% of those surveyed stated that the use of ICT as a daily tool in the teaching profession allows the exchange of academic, emotional, and convivial information. When teachers are digitally literate and trained in the use of ICT, these approaches can lead to the development of higher-order thinking skills, providing creative and individualised options for students to express their knowledge [57]. Therefore, 91% assert that WhatsApp was the main didactic mediation tool for the teaching–learning process and communication with students in the context of the pandemic. In this sense, the use and appropriation of this daily application (WhatsApp) among parents, students, and teachers behave as mediation agents for a didactic proposal that contributes to children’s emotional self-regulation.

3.3. Results of the COVID-19 Emergence and Prevalence Variable (Impact on Emotional Self-Regulation) (Students–Parents–Teachers)

For the COVID-19 emergence and prevalence variable (impact on emotional self-regulation), there were six statements with three response options each. In Figure 4, similar behaviour is observed in all of the responses, confirming the initial assumption of this research: the students were positively impacted by the implications that the pandemic had in reinforcing distance learning.

In the variable emergence and prevalence of COVID-19 and its implications in the post-pandemic period (assimilation of government strategies), out of six statements, the positive perception of the government strategies implemented at the beginning of the pandemic was established by the parents. Therefore, between 83% and 91% of those surveyed according to the preventive measure “Stay at home” responded that they agreed with this measure, guaranteeing the quality of life of families through the integration of the members of each family in work and school activities during the pandemic, while 83–89% stated that the premise “Learn at home” made it possible to establish and protect the physical and emotional well-being of people and continue with the school training process. These results are consistent with the concept of emotional regulation, which means that people not only have emotions but that they also manage them. They position themselves in relation to their emotions and their consequences and act accordingly. They can do so while the emotion is taking place, in any of the phases of the emotional process, or in advance, before it occurs [58]. However, divided opinions were evident regarding the gradual progressive and safe return to school (RGPS), where 46% did not agree to return to face-to-face, due to a third wave of the disease, a risk that increased with the return to the physical classroom

In this sense, there was a considerable percentage of children who did not return to school in the short term; therefore, it is important to alternate their learning at home, with it being concluded that the design of a didactic mediation proposal based on WhatsApp will contribute to the emotional self-regulation of boys and girls in times of pandemic, where the home will be the learning setting, mainly for those students who will not go to school nor be reunited with their classmates and teachers. Based on these findings, it is possible to infer that emotional regulation can be assumed as the management of emotions as well, since there are not only negative emotions but also positive emotions, in addition to the fact that their management can be made possible at any time of their emergence, when it is taking place, in any of the phases of the emotional process, or in advance, before it occurs. This is so that students can position themselves regarding their emotions and their consequences, which contributes to the learning process and the quality of education, in addition to improving their ability to achieve sustainable and useful learning that they can use throughout their entire life [52].

Finally, for the COVID-19 emergence and prevalence variable (assimilation of government strategies) with six statements, 55% of respondents expressed fears and uncertainty around their return to the classroom and the post-pandemic conditions. These opinions confirmed the fears that the return to in-person activities was generated at the time as part of the post-pandemic period.

3.4. Overlay Discussion of Results from Questionnaires A, B, and C (Students–Parents–Teachers)

In order to reinforce the analysis and interpretation of the results, Figure 5 presents the general scatter graphs of the three surveyed populations superimposed as A, B, and C.

• X-axis: This axis measures the didactic mediation variable of ICT, specifically the indicator “use and appropriation of ICT”.
• Y-axis: The parent surveys remained the same, and therefore, the variable emergence and prevalence of COVID-19 and its implications in the post-pandemic was measured, specifically the sub-dimension of “government strategies”, with a maximum value equal to 18 and a minimum value equal to 6. For the student surveys, the impact of emotional self-regulation was measured; therefore, the axis was inverted to the negative plane with a maximum impact value equal to −18 and a minimum impact value equal to −6.
• Bubble size: Children’s emotional self-regulation.

The graph shows the coincident responses in the three populations, presenting a positive correlation, converging at the same vertex, as follows: parents and teachers, in the upper right (greater assimilation of the school government strategies generated by COVID-19 and greater appropriation of ICT with the use of WhatsApp), with the students in the lower right (reflective Y-axis, which measures the impact of the pandemic). The three populations with bubbles (emotional self-regulation) are larger near these vertices and smaller when moving away from them. Consequently, the importance of designing a didactic mediation proposal based on WhatsApp to contribute to children’s emotional self-regulation is corroborated.

3.5. Configuration of the Educational Intervention Proposal

The proposed tool is called ICTsR-WA, based on the use of WhatsApp from its profile as an Information and Communications Technologies didactic mediation agent, with the purpose of strengthening children’s emotional self-regulation, especially during the emergence and prevalence of COVID-19. It has interactive activities that include learning elements, such as fine motor skills, textual production, logical thinking, reading comprehension, creativity, and collaborative and audio–visual work, to regulate emotions [59].

In reference to the above, psychologists, pedagogues, and sociologists agree that emotional self-regulation is managed effectively when a child receives support during their training process. The virtual ecological environment created between the school–home relationship strengthens the bonds of trust and autonomy by providing emotional security. Therefore, intra- and interpersonal intelligence will naturally be reflected in the understanding and adaptation to situations. Likewise, a process of self-control of emotion is carried out when you consciously dominate your actions with respect to a context [60].

Emotional education in children is everyone’s task at this changing moment in history, but as [61] mentions, the adult is required to act as a reference that students can imitate. Their way of reacting is observed by children and their emotional state is transmitted and contagious [62].

Therefore, ICTsR-WA is proposed as an interactive teaching tool that allows students to explore and govern their emotions through a didactic sequence with original activities that seek to strengthen creativity, communication skills, teamwork, and tolerance through three work units that enhance self-awareness, emotional management, and social awareness [12]. ICTsR-WA proposes a form of learning mediated by ICT that encourages the regulation of emotions through reflective awareness of each moment; by starting with self-control, an achievable goal that is visible and valued by the teacher, innovative strategies are created that feedback and strengthen the change [39]. The second moment is activated related to a question that seeks to explore and make perceptible the child’s thinking. The third moment is step-by-step, which is the detailed and understandable instructions to be carried out, and finally closing with a question that leads to family work and the development of critical thinking in the face of an event, where the accompanying adult is always present.

This is how ICTsR-WA develops its work route represented in the following figure, Figure 6, under an ecological environment that, according to what was proposed by [63], is the space where the child’s formation process takes place and the children are involved bidirectionally, school–home; this is where the teacher with their ingenuity and creativity begins the design of the proposal. This is how TICSR-WA develops its work route represented in the following, under an ecological environment that, as proposed by [63], is the space where the child’s training process develops and where children get involved, in the face of quality education that guarantees meaningful learning and for the life of the boys and girls.

For its ICTsR-WA design, the online software Genially was used, given its advantages of interactivity, animation, and attractive design [64]. From the perspective of emotional issues for children ages 6 to 8 who are going through this challenging time of the pandemic with school learning from home, the Genial.ly tool made it possible to define the structural and operational components of the ICTsR-WA Plan both in the enrichment of the interactive, dynamic, and attractive designs, as well as the accessibility to students through the link shared in the WhatsApp application, widely used in the current school process.

All content is navigable to advance, go back, go to the index, connect units, expand concepts, and redirect to links with complementary audio and video information, with moving images that are animated, impressive, and related to the short text that is included. The design was inspired by the WhatsApp application itself and its elements, images, videos, audio, audio recordings (voice), colour, shapes, emojis, photos, boxes, and messages, which are intuitive and simple to use. Although the protagonist is the same student, they are linked to their family and classmates, as part of the development process of the activities that make up the ICTsR-WA plan. In this context of training at a pedagogical level, the didactic sequences can be carried out as part of the course direction, classroom project, and complement of subjects (Spanish, ethics, religion, social science, arts, etc.).

Below, through graphics and explanations, the structure and operationalisation of the ICTsR-WA application are described:

ICTsR-WA (ICT information and communication technology at the service of emotional self-regulation mediated by WA (WhatsApp)) is an entertaining, dynamic, and ingenious tool that will allow children to enhance meaningful learning loaded with emotions, with pleasant activities that develop visual, auditory, and kinesthetic perception, where they have the support of the teacher and/or parent during the process of exploration and learning.

On the home screen, there are instructional icons that begin the exploration and discovery of each of the activities created for students (Figure 7). Clicking on the logo directs you to a question related to the meaning of ICTsR-WA, and clicking on the start button displays the table of contents of the proposal.

On the ICTsR-WA icon pop-up screen (see Figure 8), you have the trivia, which contains interactive elements to answer a question with multiple options, and only one is correct; on this screen, there is an entertaining neural activation exercise with clues and sound.

The following screen corresponds to the application (see Figure 9). Shown below is the index, made up of 12 options, with an icon alluding to the respective topic with its presentation label and interactive buttons for each option that, when clicked, direct you to the respective content. It is easy to handle with the choice to choose what most attracts your attention.

In index part 1, the contextualisation option, the reference label “What is COVID-19?” is displayed (see Figure 10); the interactivity button directs to the page where the activities to be carried out appear. In this case, there is a video on the YouTube platform, about the practice of raising awareness and reflecting on the biosafety protocol established by the government of Colombia for the prevention of coronavirus.

For the second option, “Justification”, there is the reference label “Reason for being” and the interactivity button link to the content (see Figure 11). On this screen, it is argued that ICTsR-WA should be in the virtual learning scenario. Due to its textual content, the option to listen to the audio recorded by the research team was added. Clicking on the interactivity button plays the reading of the text

For the third option, “Guiding principles”, the reference label is “Philosophy” (see Figure 12); the interactive button links its content to an entertaining and dynamic rotating wheel with a label for each principle, which, when passed over, displays brief explanatory content. The guiding principles of ICTsR-WA are empathy, motivation, self-esteem, autonomy, resilience, and reflection.

For the fourth option, “General objectives”, the reference label “Goal”, with the activation of the interactive button, shows the content that informs the user what ICTsR-WA wants to achieve (see Figure 13). The directionality of the proposal was determined, where the primary emotions of the children are visualised, represented by a reflective image. Here, you will find two icons at the top right to return to the index or home page. This enables the ability to choose and make decisions.

For the fifth option, “Specific objectives”, the reference label is “Stages”. Its button directs to the respective content (see Figure 14). There, the three objectives are stated in a concrete and detailed way, involving the factors that influence emotional self-regulation such as the recognition of emotions, emotional management, and social awareness.

The sixth option, “Basic emotions”, corresponds to the “Theoretical Foundation” for the group of researchers [49]; the knowledge of facial expressions of emotions and the information they transmit are related to the perception expectations that another of them (the observer) has. This expectation is determined by the interaction with the external environment that four representative emotions can show (see Figure 15): Joy, sadness, anger, and fear. The green arrow button directs the student to explore more about each of them, taking into account that a pop-up window appears with relevant information.

As a communicative piece, an important phrase is included about the nature of emotions (see Figure 16), representing the four basic ones through fun animated and interactive icons, which the child can click to expand its content.

The seventh option of the ICTaR-WA plan menu presents the structure and organisation of the teaching sequence (see Figure 17). The ICTaR-WA plan is organised into three work units: self-awareness, emotional management, and social awareness, with each one composed of four important moments of the process. When you click on units 1, 2, or 3, they direct you to the corresponding didactic sequence.

The following screen contains the four moments of each activity of the ICTsR-WA plan (see Figure 18). In the thought cloud, the user clicks on the interactive button and the reason why it is called MOMENTS is displayed, with the teacher’s perspective in reference to what the student can achieve. From the index, the option “Stop” directs to the word “MOMENT” which implies a pause, a space for reflection to encourage comprehensive reading, reaching a personal commitment in the ICTsR-WA Plan, i.e., “emotional self-regulation is your task…and I am here to support you”.

Next, the work units are presented; the operational part of the proposal called didactic sequences (see Figure 19), for [65], are “articulated sets of learning and evaluation activities that, with the mediation of a teacher, seek the achievement of certain educational goals, considering a series of resources. In practice, this implies substantial improvements in student training processes, since education becomes less fragmented and focuses on goals” (p. 20); along these lines, the sequences (units) are demarcated by mediation. ICT teaching: Use of WhatsApp. In this case, Work Unit 1: Self-awareness is presented in order to know and understand the activities. It is composed of four moments, including Moment 1: RETOCONTROL and Moment 2: ACTIVATION listening to the “Audio story: how are you?” [66] to raise awareness and give the students the context regarding the mission to be fulfilled. The user clicks on the interactive element with the arrow to “advance” to moments 3 and 4, including personal and family reflection activities to share with the teacher. It is important to take into account the instructions given by the teacher in the audio; it is a way to engage in a receptive communication process that leads to following instructions and autonomy.

Finally, in the menu option, labelled “Give us your opinion” (see Figure 20), the purpose is to compile the perceptions that ICTsR-WA induced in the children; the positive and constructive impressions are taken up to relativise the negative ones. “Give us your opinion: Your ICTsR-WA experience”, is made up of three questions that, when following the instruction presented here, redirect to a Google survey form, which is easy and interactive and receives the opinions of the students to evaluate, structure, and provide feedback, and finally the “surprise” button designed to encourage the child’s imagination and curiosity to explore where this leads. For Plan ICTsR-WA, it is the projection to a second part where the beginning is given by the contributions received; it is a network construction that seeks for all participants to be taken into account with their concerns and interests.

4. Conclusions

The content analysis allowed us to determine that emotional self-regulation is a process of awareness and regulation, modifiable according to the people who are involved in the accompaniment process, that is, the ecological environment that underlies the student’s training, which plays an important role in the determination and confrontation of their emotions, becomes a process aimed at the education of citizenship skills, where a child who regulates their emotions develops assertive communication skills, respect for differences, and empathy.

In line with the theoretical review, it is possible to affirm that technological mediations for learning are widely used not only to trigger higher thinking skills but also to manage and self-regulate emotions. These technological tools can be widely used, such as WhatsApp, which allows mediation and learning processes to be carried out to narrow, to a certain extent, the gap of inequalities in technological matters while enabling ubiquitous learning, as well as integrating technology into teaching cycles, generating intersections between goals for Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 9, and strengthening the quality of education and self-regulation as meaningful learning for life. These findings in the reviewed literature allow us to affirm the importance of the integration of technology in teaching processes, for the emotional self-regulation of children in complex situations and at all moments of their lives.

This enables an important accumulation of teaching and learning for teachers and students, which will not only strengthen information management for academic performance in unexpected situations, such as those that occurred, in particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic and the post-pandemic period, but will also provide a valuable contribution to train students as better people in addition to helping them to be good citizens. These assertions are made in correspondence with the theoretical contributions of the authors that support the arguments and findings shown in this article on the implications of emotional self-regulation, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the post-pandemic period, in addition to corroborating the existence of a close link between the importance of emotional self-regulation of children in the school context and the effective use of technologies that are commonly used such as WhatsApp, which highlights the contribution of this research to the sustainability of quality education.

Thus, the didactic mediation of ICT in sustainability is pertinent in the educational process, since it allows for the creation of virtual learning environments that facilitate emotional self-regulation, which has currently been affected, as evidenced in the analysis of information processing from the questionnaires. For “School life in times of pandemic”, where daily meetings at school were transferred to the virtual stage, in this sense, the adaptation of technologies to the educational field was accelerated and a projection for the student population became an eminent reality.

The government strategies implemented for the emergence and prevalence of COVID-19 were related to the preservation of the life and well-being of children; preventive isolation “Stay at home” strengthened self-care, “Learn at home” allowed for teaching–learning with new and creative ways of accessing knowledge, and the “GPS Return (Gradual, Progressive and Safe)” represented the new alternative of returning to school to strengthen the pedagogy of reunion, vital for strengthening socio-emotional competencies.

To achieve this, it was necessary to transform the school dynamics because all children are susceptible to these new changes in education; they need more attention. For this reason, the idea of providing something innovative and different materialises in ICTsR-WA, a tool that integrates information and communication technologies to contribute to emotional self-regulation mediated by WhatsApp through a didactic sequence that defines the structural and operational components according to the context and the information collected in the research instruments to create different, interactive, and dynamic activities that awaken interest and curiosity and activates all of the senses, since the success of education is the combination of cognition and emotion.

The techno-pedagogical mediation of capabilities is limited to the construction of competencies for sustainable education, which are made viable through the socio-emotional training of learners; this implies the transformation of themselves and their society. In this sense, the development of the knowledge, skills, attitudes, competencies, and values necessary to face global, national, and local challenges is relevant. Finally, education is the way to transform people’s lives and leave a mark on each of the actions for the sustainability of education for life; therefore, it is necessary to continue with research processes in this area, which allow us to design and implement teaching in a comprehensive, relevant way with school strategies aimed at achieving the management of students’ emotions, which are the reason for education. All this would result in quality education, which allows for the strengthening of the socio-emotional environment of boys and girls.