The development of scientific thinking and an understanding of science ideas is essential for all people. Not only do children deserve to have experiences that help them learn about and make sense of their world, but these experiences set the foundation for later science skills (NASEM, 2022). These understands are vital to living life, to participating in society, and for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) related careers (which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts will increase by 8% over the next ten years (2021)). One attempt to address this need is to begin science instruction earlier, specifically, there has been a recent push in early childhood education to incorporate high-quality science experiences into the preschool classroom (NASEM, 2022). While the field has produced resources to help teachers meet this need (e.g., science curriculum), it has skipped a critical first step in determining what ideas teachers already bring into their classroom about science. Teachers’ ideas about science are an important area of study because research has shown teachers’ ideas can influence their implementation of curriculum and classroom practices. Yet this characteristic has been found to be malleable and is an advantageous area to target through professional development. The current study takes an asset-based approach to determine early childhood teachers’ ideas about science for young children and how these ideas relate to their classroom science practices. In this study, teachers’ open-ended responses to these questions were analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006). This approach provided a rich and deep understanding of the range of ideas teachers have related to science. Overall, these ideas were shown to be more positive than previously found. A weak, but positive correlation was found between these ideas and other measures of teachers’ attributes related to science (e.g., attitudes and beliefs about science and science self-efficacy). However, teachers’ attributes about science were not shown to predict classroom science practices. This disconnect between early childhood teachers’ idea about science and their classroom science practice, highlights a need to figure out how to better support teachers in engaging children in science practices and the role that beliefs, contexts, practices, and other dimensions play in the process. In addition, further measurement work is needed to ensure researchers are accurately capturing the relationship between teachers’ ideas about science and their classroom science practices. Implications for professional learning for early childhood teachers on science topics and pedagogy are discussed.
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