Teaching for conceptual change in preschool science: relations among teachers’ professional beliefs, knowledge, and instructional practice

To effectively support early science learning in preschool, teachers need to be aware of the constructivist nature of children’s learning. This study examined a sample of Swiss preschool teachers’ beliefs about science learning and teaching and their relation to their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and scaffolding practices within a curriculum about floating and sinking. In Study 1, beliefs and PCK were assessed by means of questionnaires. A latent-profile analysis involving 104 preschool teachers reveals three clusters of teachers exhibiting specific belief profiles about science learning: ‘highly constructivist,’ ‘low constructivist’ and ‘hands-on’ teachers. PCK differed across clusters, while highly constructivist teachers ranked highest. To deepen our understanding of the relations among preschool teachers’ beliefs, PCK and teaching, we videotaped scaffolding practice of a subsample of 32 preschool teachers when teaching a curriculum of floating and sinking (Study 2). We found that teachers often apply scaffolding strategies to support topic-specific learning. However, scaffolding strategies aiming to stimulate higher-order thinking were rather rare. Furthermore, we found correlations between teachers’ constructivist beliefs and their scaffolding as well as between teachers’ topic-specific language and their PCK. Our findings emphasize the importance of targeting teachers’ beliefs and PCK to improve the quality of preschool science instruction.