Analysis of prospective early childhood education teachers' proposals of nature field trips: An educational experience to bring nature close during this stage

Abstract

Nature field trips stand out as pedagogical experiences because of their benefits in science learning, even in early childhood education (ECE). However, previous studies have found that teachers often do not make use of their full educational potential. The present research offers a descriptive exploration of ECE prospective teachers' enactment of nature field trips, detecting the difficulties they encounter and the mistakes they make. To this end, 205 videos were analyzed qualitatively to determine the pedagogical planning of nature field trips proposed and carried out by prospective ECE teachers. The results indicated that most of the participants designed nature field trips in which they could develop conceptual content related to living things through an expository method, with pupils having a passive role. They did not use activities, materials, questions, or evaluation during the trips, and neither did they integrate the trips into their classroom programming. This study adds to an understanding of how prospective teachers perceive nature field trips. Implications are presented for teacher educators working with preservice teachers to build upon prepare them for implementing nature field trips with ECE students.