Teachers’ Practices in Preschool Science Education: A Comparison Study Between USA and China

This dissertation investigated teachers’ practices in preschool science education between China and United States, especially focusing on the factors that affected teachers’ instruction in early childhood science education, teachers’ pedagogical practices in teaching children science, and teachers’ classroom discourse methods used in teaching science. Teachers usually maintain a leadership role in designing curriculum, conducting, and guiding activities/experiments and asking questions in the learning processes (Ravanis, 2017). For this reason, it is important to pay attention to teachers’ pedagogical practices in early childhood science education. Data was collected from fieldwork in kindergartens between China and United States. There was one kindergarten in Beijing, China and another kindergarten in Los Angeles, CA (United States). For each of the kindergartens, there were two classes and two teachers who participated in this study. This fieldwork included observing science classes, including how the teachers taught children science, and how they conducted science activities and experiments. I interviewed four teachers who taught science in the selected classes, analyzed textbooks, and documents relating to science education. The results showed the purpose for early childhood science education in the kindergartens in China and the United States were similar. Both strived to give children more chances to discover and explore by themselves, so that children could have more hands-on experiences and enjoy the process of science exploration. But in terms of the implementation of teaching children science, there were differences between kindergartens in China and the United States. For the kindergarten in China, because of the more structured curriculum and learning environment, science education was more teacher-centered and observation-oriented. Compared with the kindergarten in the United States, the curriculum design and the learning environment was more flexible and diverse, so that the science education was more student-centered and exploration-oriented. Although teachers’ beliefs towards teaching children science in the kindergartens in China and United States illuminated goals to embolden more opportunities for children to explore, teachers in the Chinese kindergarten still emphasized more on measuring learning outcomes whereas the teachers in the American kindergarten afforded more attention to the process of exploration