Technological knowledge in early childhood education: provision by staff of learning opportunities

Abstract

Developments in early childhood education (ECE) over the last two decades have for many countries meant a change towards a more subject-oriented pedagogy in which preschool staff are commissioned to teach technology to young children. This has been proved to be a challenge to the staff. Through analysis of activities at two preschool units, this study shows how technology education can be provided in ECE, and what kind of knowledgelearning by children can be facilitated in different activities and depending on the actions of the staff. An ethnographically-inspired perspective was employed, using methods such as participant observation and formal and informal interviews, in order to investigate the technological knowledge encouraged by the staff at two preschool units in Sweden. The results show that staff promote children's learning of a variety of technological content, mainly relating to technological objects and creative processes. This range from simple knowledge of how to handle a knife or a pair of scissors to more complex knowledge of how to build something to be fit for purpose and how different tools or materials are more or less adequate for a specific activity or design. The result also show that the way in which the staff address these contents effect which abilities and skills children are promoted to develop.

Characterizations of preschool technology education: analyses of seven individual preschool teachers’ and childcare attendants’ descriptions of their teaching

“…Previous studies have showed that technology education is described with both broadness and depth by preschool staff on an aggregated level . Observations of the practice show the teaching sometimes reflects the broadness and depth previously described (Sundqvist, 2020), while sometimes it is shallow and focuses on natural science rather than technology (Benson & Treleven, 2011;Campbell, 2010) In addition, scrutiny of Swedish preschools found they did not provide a satisfactory technology education, regarding neither content nor teaching methods (Swedish Schools Inspectorate, 2012, 2017. Keeping in mind the results of this study are based on the staff's statements, and thus cannot claim the same authenticity as the observation studies mentioned above, this study shows diverse approaches to technology education, in part reflecting the results from previous research.…”

“…Regarding the technological content, Sundqvist (2020) studied the opportunities given to children at two preschools. For the analysis, she used a framework developed in previous work on what preschool staff perceive as relevant content for technology education.…”

“…Hallström et al, 2015;Kodsi, 2020;Mawson, 2011;van Meeteren & Zan, 2010), or reported on teachers' perspectives on, or teaching in, technology education on an aggregated level (see e.g. Campbell & Jobling, 2008;Elvstrand et al, 2018;Otterborn et al, 2019;Sundqvist, 2020;Öqvist & Högström, 2018). Also, in some studies where preschool staff talk about technology education, they do not clarify what the content of the teaching is (Elvstrand et al, 2018;Öqvist & Högström, 2018).…”

An Examination of Digital Parenting Behavior in Parents with Preschool Children in the Context of Lifelong Learning

“…The questionnaire does not borrow questions from another instrument and was developed in accordance with steps for developing items in measurement and evaluation tools [78]. A literature review was conducted in order to establish validity by deriving from recent studies in the same field [5,24,25,[79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98]. In addition, informal meetings were carried out with preschool teachers who have preschool children of their own, in order to consult their evaluations regarding digital parenting.…”

Perspectives on Early Childhood Education in Romania: a Qualitative Research

“…There are very diverse benefits of high quality ECEC services: social, economic and educational. In setting the groundwork for better skills for future EU people, ECEC services play a crucial role in enabling us to face the mid-and long-term challenges and to build a more trained workforce capable of responding to and adapting to technological change (Sundqvist, 2020). There is ample evidence that admission to high-quality ECEC systems results in far improved outcomes for international core competency assessments, such as PISA and PIRLS, which are equal to success in one or two academic years (Zhao, 2020).…”