Drawings by pre-service early childhood teachers while recalling scenes from early childhood science activities

Objectives The purpose of this study was to analyze the drawings and interviews of pre-service early childhood teachers on early childhood science activities and to orient them on the educational contents and methods to be taught in early childhood science education. Methods For this purpose, 34 students from the Department of Early Childhood Education at a 4-year university located in City A were asked to draw scenes of early childhood science activities during an early childhood science education class, and then interviews were conducted with 9 of them. The content of the drawings drawn by pre-service early childhood teachers was classified according to the content of early childhood science education to examine trends, and the interview data was read repeatedly and categorized based on major keywords and main content. Results In this study, pre-service early childhood teachers’ drawings were analyzed and found that the most common scenes were ‘growing and observing plants’ and ‘raising and observing animals’. But ‘experimenting with the teacher’, ‘doing science in play’, ‘experiencing plants and animals in outdoor learning’ were relatively rare. Through these research results, it was found that pre-service early childhood teachers have biased ideas about early childhood science activities, topics related to ‘animals and plants’, ‘life and the natural environment’, and the types of science activities that take place indoors. The interviews also revealed that pre-service early childhood teachers have negative experiences and feelings related to science, which makes them feel uncomfortable and have difficulty with science. Conclusions These findings suggest that it is necessary for instructors to reflect more diverse contents of science education in early childhood science education courses and to experience science activities directly with pre-service early childhood teachers. In addition, this suggests that there is a need to reduce pre-service early childhood teachers’ indifference to science and their vague fear of science.