Poster #42 - From Professional Experiences and Qualifications to Professional Practices: The Case of Early Childhood Mathematics Education

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

Teachers’ professional experiences and qualifications profoundly affect their daily teaching practices (Oppermann, et al., 2021). Enhancing early childhood educators’ (ECEs) professional experiences and qualifications is deemed as essential for quality early childhood education (ECE) (Manning, et al., 2019). Early mathematics is a domain that many ECEs are hesitant to teach as they find themselves as either lack of pedagogical content knowledge on early mathematics (Ng, et al., 2003) or having limited interests in mathematics (Sumpter, 2020). As a result, the contents covered in the early mathematics teaching activities are usually ill-defined (Fuson, 2015). It is therefore meaningful to investigate how ECEs’ professional experiences and qualifications influence their professional practices related to early mathematics learning and teaching.

The present study aimed to understand how ECEs’ pre-service (educational level) and in-service (years spent in the ECE profession and attendance professional development (PD) programmes on early mathematics) professional background and qualifications were related to their early mathematics teaching practices and whether teachers’ PCK in early mathematics and interests in mathematics mediated this relationship.

A total of 7,129 ECEs (Mage = 32.24 years, SDage = 7.48, 7,028 females) from 26 (out of 34) provinces in China completed a survey to understand their professional background and training experiences, their personal interests in mathematics (measured by Attitudes toward Mathematics Inventory, α =.87), and PCK in early mathematics (measured by Survey of Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Early Childhood Mathematics, α =.81) (Smith, 2000). They also reported the frequencies of early mathematics activities to learn three key mathematics skills, i.e., pre-math (α =.94), numeracy and shape (α =.80), and application (α =.92), in their daily teaching practices. All these skills are essential in early mathematics learning (Fuson, 2015).

The structural equation model, controlling for teachers’ age and gender, was conducted to explore the relationship between ECEs’ pre-service and in-service professional background and the frequencies of early mathematics activities emphasizing different skills in their classrooms. The results showed that although ECEs’ years in the ECE profession, attendance of PD programmes on early mathematics, and educational levels were all predictive of the frequencies of early math activities in their classroom, ECEs’ attendance of PD programmes showed the strongest associations with their early math teaching practices compared with years spent in the ECE profession and educational levels. ECEs’ interest in mathematics was found to slightly mediate the relationship between ECEs in-service professional experiences (years in the ECE profession and attendance of PD programmes) and the frequencies of different early math activities, while ECEs’ PCK in early mathematics slightly mediated the relationship between their pre-service professional experiences (educational levels) and mathematics activities. Unexpectedly, ECEs’ PCK in early mathematics was found to be negatively associated with the frequencies of application activities. The results indicated the complexity in teaching practices and factors beyond ECEs’ personal-level characteristics should also be accounted in understanding the processes from being professional qualified to delivering content-appropriate teaching activities in early mathematics. Implications for supporting ECEs’ professional mathematics teaching were discussed.

Authors

• JIN SUN, Education University of Hong Kong

• YUSHU WANG, The Education University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author