Exploring the Effects of Preschool Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs on Content-Based Pedagogical Conceptualizations and PCK Integrations towards Science Teaching

Abstract

This exploratory case study aims to determine how preschool teachers’ epistemological beliefs influence their pedagogical conceptualizations of science teaching. The research was conducted with a total of 10 teachers that were selected among 61 preschool teachers by their epistemological beliefs. The participants were divided into two sub-groups consisting of five persons each to represent the lower and higher epistemological profiles, based on their scores obtained from the Epistemological Belief Scale Towards Learning (EBSTL). A written form (Content Representation Task [CRT]) reflecting the content representations (CoRes) methodology was applied to determine these participants’ pedagogical conceptualizations of early childhood science teaching and to reveal their PCK integration. The qualitative data collected in this way were analyzed through the constant comparative method, inductive content analysis, in-depth explicit PCK analysis, enumerative approach, and PCK mapping. The analysis results showed that preschool teachers in the higher epistemological beliefs referred more to the science literacy vision and tended to use inquiry-based teaching approaches, and they addressed science teaching in a more holistic structure. Finally, both groups of teachers were insufficient to integrate assessment and curriculum components into early childhood science teaching. The results showed that epistemological beliefs directed the early childhood science teaching practices based on science literacy vision.