Identifying the instructional software in accordance with the developmental characteristics of pre-school learners

Nowadays, preschools use multimedia educational software under the influence of information communication technology to enhance learners' learning. Attention to the developmental characteristics of preschool children as a basis for selecting instructional multimedia software increases the effectiveness and efficiency of their use. So, the evaluative research method and the hierarchical analysis process approach were used to select the appropriate educational software. The research population included all of the preschool instructional software packages produced by multimedia companies in Iran. Among them, 12 soft wares were selected as the research sample through available sampling method and they were evaluated using a researcher-made 29 items checklist. Content validity of the research tool was approved by 3 relevant experts, and its reliability was obtained using the consistency ratio for all criteria and software packages (CR< 0.1),  indicating the logicality and reliability of the pair comparisons. Findings related to prioritizing the evaluation criteria relative to each other revealed that the quality of criteria; the appropriateness with the age of the children, being enjoyable/ engaging, educational value, child friendly, assessment & monitoring, and personalization capabilities, in educational software were ranked 1 to 6, respectively. Also, according to the findings related to the prioritization of preschool educational soft wares based on the whole evaluation criteria; Mishā and Kooshā software (with value of 0.139) was in the top priority, and the lullaby software (with value of 0.032) was ranked 12th, as well. In sum, it can be concluded that the quality of most pre-school instructional software packages in all dimensions, especially in the two dimensions of "assessment & monitoring", and "personalization capabilities", need to be strengthened, and only a limited number of instructional soft wares, including "Mishā and Kooshā" , "Baby Einstein" ,"Brainy Baby" , "Preschool and Kindergarten," and "Pictorial Instruction of the Persian Alphabet" can promote the learners learning.