Study of research trends in science education field for early childhood

Abstract

This study is for understanding research trend of science education for early childhood, analyzing 248 master's and doctoral theses introduced from 2002 to 2011 for understanding and discussing quantitative trend, research subject, research object, research type, and data collecting method. The results are as follows. First, the number of thesis over science for children is continuously growing. Second, the subject is mainly about research over developmental psychology, but study over teaching and learning method and teacher education is also making progress. Third, when it comes to research object trend, most researches subject children, few researches subject parents. Forth, when it comes to research type trend, experimental study has great importance, and research for case study and culture technology holds far short importance. Examination is a data collection method with the highest frequency, and the number of using questionnaire method is decreasing. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.