Establishing methods to represent early childhood teachers’ PCK about children’s science learning
Abstract
Early childhood teachers (EC teachers) report wanting more support to build their knowledge about, and confidence in, creating science learning experiences with young children. Research can help increase their capacity for offering equitable learning opportunities to children. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), defined as the teacher’s representation of anticipation strategies to teach concepts and abilities in a specific area to a particular group of students, seems to address that problem. The disagreement between studies about how to study it could remain because it is not clear how to characterize it empirically. This work presents an initial literature review (projecting a future systematic review of the literature) about the PCK in EC teachers' science teaching with children from three to six years old in studies from 2014 to 2024, to enrich the ideas about available measurements of that construct. We obtained 22 articles searching in the bibliographic databases Web of Science, Jstor, and EBSCO, in August and September of 2024, with the same two queries in each database: "pedagogical content knowledge" AND "science teaching" AND "preschool", and "pedagogical content knowledge" AND "STEM" AND "preschool". Results from the initial review were analyzed in a double-entry table of research topics, and data collection methods, and found that: 1) studies that researched teachers' reasons for including certain activities in their preschoolers' science teaching used questionnaires, scales, teachers-created activities, and classroom observations, 2) studies that compared EC teachers’ beliefs on science teaching used teachers’ explanations about their designed tasks and creation of hands-on activities, and 3) studies focused on the impact of the teacher preparation programs on EC teachers strategies for science teaching with preschoolers used scales, reflection tools, classroom observations, interviews, and children knowledge assessments. The systematic review will improve search queries, and include research articles, book chapters, research reports, and dissertations.
Start Time
16-4-2025 10:00 AM
End Time
16-4-2025 11:00 AM
Room Number
304
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Presentation Subtype
Grad/Comp Orals
Presentation Category
Education
Faculty Mentor
Alissa Lange
Establishing methods to represent early childhood teachers’ PCK about children’s science learning
304
Early childhood teachers (EC teachers) report wanting more support to build their knowledge about, and confidence in, creating science learning experiences with young children. Research can help increase their capacity for offering equitable learning opportunities to children. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), defined as the teacher’s representation of anticipation strategies to teach concepts and abilities in a specific area to a particular group of students, seems to address that problem. The disagreement between studies about how to study it could remain because it is not clear how to characterize it empirically. This work presents an initial literature review (projecting a future systematic review of the literature) about the PCK in EC teachers' science teaching with children from three to six years old in studies from 2014 to 2024, to enrich the ideas about available measurements of that construct. We obtained 22 articles searching in the bibliographic databases Web of Science, Jstor, and EBSCO, in August and September of 2024, with the same two queries in each database: "pedagogical content knowledge" AND "science teaching" AND "preschool", and "pedagogical content knowledge" AND "STEM" AND "preschool". Results from the initial review were analyzed in a double-entry table of research topics, and data collection methods, and found that: 1) studies that researched teachers' reasons for including certain activities in their preschoolers' science teaching used questionnaires, scales, teachers-created activities, and classroom observations, 2) studies that compared EC teachers’ beliefs on science teaching used teachers’ explanations about their designed tasks and creation of hands-on activities, and 3) studies focused on the impact of the teacher preparation programs on EC teachers strategies for science teaching with preschoolers used scales, reflection tools, classroom observations, interviews, and children knowledge assessments. The systematic review will improve search queries, and include research articles, book chapters, research reports, and dissertations.