Project Details
Projekt
How does domain-specific preschool teacher training work best? – An intervention study for mathematical and science-related situation-specific skills
Subject Area
General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
Term
from 2020 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439687350
One of the goals of a preschool is to provide age-appropriate, domain-specific early childhood education. At present, most preschool teachers in Germany are trained at specialized colleges (Fachschulen). These post-secondary institutions provide a broad-based training to prepare students for various types of positions. In particular, it is assumed that preschool teachers need domain-specific competence (e.g. in early mathematics or science) in order to perform their jobs. No empirical data are available on the amount and quality of attention given to specific educational domains in preschool teacher training. Training programs appear to put more emphasis on practical knowledge and skills, rather than on teaching children domain-specific content. Research has given hints that a certain knowledge base is needed for the development of domain-specific professional competence. While preschool teacher training addresses a wide spectrum of pedagogical themes, it is not plausible that each theme is addressed with adequate learning time. It can be assumed that preschool teachers have been able to transfer their developed competence in one domain to another domain (e.g. transfer of competence in early mathematics education to early science education). First empirical results indicate that it is difficult to transfer competence from one domain to another.The proposed project addresses the open question whether this lack in opportunities to learn can be addressed by support preschool teachers to transfer the professional competence from one domain to another (in the present study: from the domain of mathematics to the domain of science) or if they need opportunities to learn in both domains. To address this aim two treatment groups ("best practice" and "with transfer Support") are compared to two control groups ("business as usual" and "wait list"). The "best practice" group gets opportunities to learn competence in mathematics and science. In contrast the "with transfer Support" group gets only opportunities to learn competence in mathematics and a support for transfer. The control group "business as usual" represents the actual state of the art in preschool teacher training in Germany. The answers to these research questions will contribute to our understanding of how prospective preschool teachers develop skills within and across domains during their initial training. No evidence of this kind is yet available at either the national or the international level. Our findings will be of theoretical as well as practical significance because the study will generate information about the possibility of transfer of competences and thereby play an important role in improving programs to raise the level of professionalism among preschool teachers.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
Co-Investigators
Dr. Julia Mareike Barenthien; Professor Dr. Aiso Heinze
