Math or math pedagogical content knowledge for early childhood teachers? The math requirements on certification exams across the States

The aim of this study was to examine the math requirements, including both math content knowledge and math pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), on certification exams for early childhood teachers across the United States. We analyzed the certification exams in all 50 states. Our findings reveal that nine states assess both math and math PCK, 15 states assess neither math nor math pedagogy and etc. which indicates low consistency across states regarding what math knowledge is valued for early childhood education teachers across the states, and also indicates literacy pedagogy (required by 22 states) seems to be more valued than math pedagogy (by 17 states). The math PCK questions were also coded into three categories: identifying, analyzing, and supporting; across all those categories, the questions focused on PreK or younger were considerably fewer than for older grades, which highlight the need to define and value math PCK for PreK and younger.