Technology and Early Science Education: Examining Generalist Primary School Teachers’ Views on Tacit Knowledge Assessment Tools

Abstract

For some time a central issue has occupied early science education discussions -primary student classroom experiences and the resulting attitudes towards science. This has in part been linked to generalist teachers' own knowledge of science topics and pedagogical confidence. Recent research in cognitive development has examined the role of so-called tacit knowledge and its potential benefits for supporting conceptual development in children. However, the incorporation of such tools would depend on teachers' willingness to use it. Taking a qualitative approach through interviews, the present study examined 12 generalist primary school teachers' views on science education and their perceptions of tacit knowledge assessment as an approach to facilitating conceptual change. The overall results indicate positive attitudes embedded within a model centred on trust and responsibility of learning. These findings support the use of relevant software for teaching children by emphasising the willingness of teachers to use such technology, which has further consequences for continuing professional development of classroom teachers who do not have formal science backgrounds, which in turn should promote science achievements among students.

The Formation of Scientific Conceptions in Early Childhood: A Result of “Over”-Development?

“…Because children will not have come across irregulars too frequently in their early language use, the -ed rule cannot yet be successfully blocked where it would need to be. This explanation, too, chime well with arguments put forward by other studies in science concept development, such as where certain rules -"heavy objects fall faster because they are heavier"are consistently applied in explicitly stated predictions of dynamic events, but simpler recognition tasks can block this rule from being expressed (Hast & Howe, 2015, 2017. And just as increasing exposure to irregulars will eventually help to avoid the overapplication of -ed (Pinker, 1995), relevant intervention tasks have shown that with practice explicit scientific rules can be reformulated in appropriate ways (see e.g., Howe et al, 2013).…”

“…Instead, the naïve ideas may re-emerge under certain conditions, such as when performing under timed constraints (see e.g., Shtulman & Valcarcel, 2012;Shtulman & Young, 2020), just as overextensions can do. It is thus worth noting that conceptual learning is both linguistic and non-linguistic, with a necessary differentiation between children's verbal and non-verbal performance, with the former seemingly being less prone to overextensions (e.g., Hast & Howe, 2015, 2017.…”

“…These ideas emerge early in their developmental trajectory, typically surfacing by the age of 3 years (see e.g., Hast, 2018Hast, , 2019Povinelli et al, 2012). Notably, it remains a well-established observation that changing such conceptions continues to pose challenges, even for educators themselves (Hast, 2017). Consequently, an important question arises: Can we approach the cultivation of scientific knowledge formation from an alternative perspective that we term "overconceptualisation"?…”

Children’s Understanding of the Rainbow: A Trajectory of Conceptual Development across Middle Childhood

“…The present study provides a starting point for instructors to reconsider what is taught when and in what manner -which in turn may have implications for their own confidence in teaching (cf. Hast, 2017).…”

“…A key challenge for instructors, especially in the earlier stages of classroom-based teaching, is that children bring a wide range of ideas about everyday world phenomena with them (Allen, 2014;Hast, 2014;Hast & Howe, 2012); ideas that are frequently highly resistant to change through instruction (Duit, Treagust, & Widodo, 2013). Teachers are generally not ignorant of this issue (Gomez-Zwiep, 2008;Hast, 2017). However, in the particular context of rainbows and rainbow formation, while little is known from a research perspective, there is evidence to demonstrate that many primary school teachers in fact tend to overestimate their 2 / 6 students' level of understanding (Malleus, Kikas, & Kruus, 2016).…”