Analysis of Content Knowledge Categories in Preservice Teachers When Teaching the Concept of Number in Preschool

Abstract

This paper analyzes a cohort of 128 pre-service educators teaching the concept of numbers to 4–5 year old children. Through a professional practice report, which educators elaborate on during the last year of teaching training, we have constructed a dichotomous guide to examine content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, curricular content knowledge, and reflective practice categories in their teaching practice. A Bernoulli statistical analysis and the k-means algorithm applied to a sample of 51 lesson plans collected from practice reports leads us to conclude that there is a weak integration of knowledge categories in educators’ practice and suggests how to improve their teaching–learning process.