Expressions of Personal Epistemologies in Early Childhood Educators' Explanations

• In Event: 34.041 - Explanations in the Classroom: Quality, Perceptions, and Delivery

Abstract

Introduction
Paper 1 indicates there are individual differences in how frequently teachers respond to children’s information-seeking questions. Paper 2 builds on this finding by examining the extent to which the content of teachers’ explanations contain markers of academic discourse. Specifically, this study suggests that addition to providing adequate explanations, teachers’ explanations also transmit cues regarding their beliefs about the nature and construction of knowledge (i.e., teachers’ personal epistemologies; Kuhn & Weinstock, 2002). For example, the content of a teacher explanation may convey there is a single absolute answer, or, alternatively, evaluate available evidence. Thus, the primary goal of this study was to investigate whether early child educators’ personal epistemologies are expressed in their explanations to children’s questions.
Method
Participants
49 in-service early childhood educators (47 females) working in both private- and public-schools in the United States participated. Participants were recruited by sending the study link to school principals or directors.

Procedure
Participants completed a 30-minute survey online using Qualtrics software. Participants completed three blocks of the survey – child question vignettes, demographic items, and personal epistemology items – and were then compensated with a $10 gift-card.

Measures
Demographics. Teachers self-reported their level of education (in years) and current grade level taught.

Personal Epistemologies. Teachers were categorized as holding an absolutist (n=28) or evaluativist stance (n=21) – the dominant perspectives from Kuhn & Weinstock’s (2002) model – using the Epistemic Thinking Assessment (ETA, Barzilai and Weinstock 2015). The ETA consists of a short scenario and subsequent questions about conflicting views on a scientific phenomenon [see Table 1].

Responses to Child Information-seeking Questions. Teachers read vignettes (n=6) of hypothetical child questions about science (e.g., Yesterday it rained and afterwards, you and your class saw a rainbow. Today one child asks you, “how are rainbows made?"). Participants saw one vignette at a time (randomized within participant), and then keyed their response to, “What would you say to this child?”. Vignette responses were coded as absolutist or evaluativist [Table 1]. The number of responses coded into each stance was tallied for each participant, serving as the dependent measure.

Results and Conclusions
Teachers’ responses to child questions were regressed onto demographic and ETA variables. Results indicated teachers with more years of education provided more evaluativist responses [b=-0.71; z =-3.35; 95% CI: 0.05, 0.35] and fewer absolutist responses [b=0.19; z =2.56; 95% CI: -0.31, -0.10]. Similarly, teaching older grades predicted more evaluativist responses and fewer absolutist responses. After controlling for education and grade level taught, teachers holding an absolutist stance provided more responses containing cues to absolutism [b=-0.71; z =-3.35; 95% CI: -1.15, -0.31] (Figure 1a). However, teachers’ evaluativist responses were not predicted by their personal epistemologies, [b=0.28; z =1.37; 95% CI: -0.12, 0.67] (Figure 1b).

Our data suggest that children may learn more from teacher explanations than just the answer to their question: they may also be tracking cues that highlight teachers’ conceptions of knowledge. The implication is that hearing adult explanations may help shape children’s own conceptions of knowledge during the early childhood period.

Authors

• Kathryn A Leech, Boston University

• Kathleen H. Corriveau, Boston University

• Amanda S Haber, Boston University