The purpose of this study is to examine how teacher education about science Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK) affects early childhood teacher's level of science PCK, and to figure out how teacher's level of science PCK affects teacher's verbal intera...
The purpose of this study is to examine how teacher education about science Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK) affects early childhood teacher's level of science PCK, and to figure out how teacher's level of science PCK affects teacher's verbal interaction. This study implicates that early childhood teachers also need to improve their pedagogical content knowledge through teacher education and self development. The research questions are as follows.
1. Does teacher education about science pedagogical content knowledge have effect on early childhood teacher's level of science pedagogical content knowledge?
2. Does teacher education about science pedagogical content knowledge have effect on early childhood teacher's verbal interaction?
2-1. How does teacher education about science pedagogical content knowledge affect frequency of early childhood teacher's verbal interaction as a whole?
2-2. How does teacher education about science pedagogical content knowledge affect frequency of early childhood teacher's verbal interaction in each level?
The subjects of this study are 20 early childhood teachers working in two private kindergartens located in GyungGiDo. For analyzing early childhood teacher's science pedagogical content knowledge regarding shadow concept, the questionnaire developed for this study was used. By this instrument, the preliminary inspection to prove homogeneity of early childhood teacher's science pedagogical content knowledge regarding shadow concept was conducted. For analyzing teacher's level of verbal interaction in science activity regarding shadow concept, the scale developed for this study based on the Tu(2001)'s ‘Preschool Teacher Verbal Interaction Coding System' and Bloom et al.(1984)'s scale of question. This study is experimental research. For pretest, verbal interactions of each 10 teacher of control group and experimental group were observed by event sampling method when science activity regarding shadow concept occurred in morning self selection time. After pretest, the researcher deliver teacher education about science pedagogical content knowledge regarding shadow concept to 10 teachers of experimental group as experimental treatment. None was done for control group as experimental treatment. After experimental treatment, posttest was conducted in the same way as pretest's. For data analysis, frequency, percentage, average, standard deviation, independent sample t test were used.
The result of this study are as follows. First, teacher education about science pedagogical content knowledge regarding shadow concept significantly enhances early childhood teacher's level of science pedagogical content knowledge. Before the teacher education was done for experimental group, the result of verbal interaction pretest revealed that there was no significant difference between the level of pedagogical content knowledge of control group and that of experimental group. After the teacher education, control group's level of pedagogical content knowledge increases in 6.03%, from 19.90 points to 21.10 points, but there is no significant change(t=-1.227, p>.05). Experimental group's level of science pedagogical content knowledge increases in 117.39%, from 20.70 points to 45.00 points, and the average score increases twice as much than that of the pretest(t=15.469, p<.05).
Second, after early childhood teachers had given the lesson of science pedagogical content knowledge, the range of verbal interaction used by teachers was expanded. When teachers didn't have pedagogical content knowledge, the range of verbal interaction level distributes from the lowest level which is Level 1 Neglect to Level 5 Expansion for Same Level Activity among whole 8 levels of verbal interaction. In other words, they didn't use the level of verbal interaction which can set the scaffolding level for children, deliver the accurate science concept as a word, and help children to analyze the cause and result by themselves. However, when teachers come to have pedagogical content knowledge, the range of verbal interaction level reaches Level 8 Analysis and Synthesis, the highest level of verbal interaction.
Third, comparing the frequency of two groups' verbal interaction levels, no meaningful differences were found from Level 1 ‘Neglect' to Level 5 ‘Expansion of Same Level Activity' However, when teachers come to know pedagogical content knowledge, the use of high 3 levels of verbal interaction, which contain Level 6 ‘Expansion for Scaffolding Level Activity', Level 7 ’Concept Clarification and Concept Expansion', and Level 8 ‘Analysis and Synthesis', showed statistically significant increases.