Eight preschool teachers' understanding of the topic chemistry : A degree in early childhood teacher education

This is a survey of pre-school teacher´s use of chemistry as a part of their classroom curriculum. The thesis was conducted as the capstone for the pre-school teacher’s education program. This course started in August 2010 and finished in January 2014, through Karlstad University, distance program. This study was conducted as a part of a pre-service teaching practise. It focuses on how pre-schools implement chemistry instruction and the impact of pre-school teachers personal views on the implementation of the revised curriculum (Skolverket, 2010), where natural science has an increased focus than previous years. This investigation tests the hypothesis that pre-school teachers’ personal views of Natural Science have a significant impact on implementation of chemistry instruction. A total of eight pre-school teachers completed qualitative surveys and the results were scored and divided into specific categories. The results demonstrate that majority of pre-school teachers report that they do not have sufficient chemistry background training to successfully implement classroom instruction. In addition to the lack pre-service training, the teachers reported that large class size ratios and insufficient instructional time minimized the prioritization of chemistry instruction in pre-school classes compared with the intentions of 2010 curriculum guidelines. Further the results show that only a small percentage of the teachers utilize chemistry instruction in a day to day basis. Teachers also reported that chemistry instruction should include experimental investigations that require increased planning time. All the teachers reported that studying the seasons constituted appropriate chemistry instruction and that snow measurements provided affective laboratory experiments. This survey confirms the hypothesis that pre-school teachers’ perceptions impact chemistry instruction in the classroom