Preschool Teachers' Perspective Of Science Activities

Year 2017, Volume: 4 Issue: 1, 214 - 223, 01.06.2016

Selcah Süheyla Ergün

Abstract

Children have a natural and innate sense of
curiosity and discovery. From infancy they use all their senses to explore
their environment. Using this experience they begin to perceive, know and make
sense of the environment. Children actively continue their discovery process
using their information in all new activities and restructuring the information
when it is necessary. Preschool education is an education process in which 0-72
months children are prepared for basic education through developmentally and
individually appropriate and simulating environment which supports for their
physical, mental, affective and social development in accordance with the
dominant cultural values. One of the major activities of the preschool
education is to guide, reinforce and improve children’s innate curiosity and
motivation to learn and think. Early science education is delivered in
preschool education. It is the first planned and programmed science education
for children and is given under the name science and natural activities. It is
based on children’s interests and needs. The aim of preschool science education
is to provide children with an opportunity to learn about basic facts and
events about the nature as well as to improve their affective and psychomotor
skills and to help their attempts in making sense of themselves and their
environment. It also tries to make children better estimations and
observations. Therefore, preschool children should be offered and take part in
those activities which improve their reasoning, observation, testing and
interpreting skills. Preschool science activities are significant in terms of
understanding the relationships between objects and events. At this stage
children learn about scientific concepts through their active participation in
the environment. Such activities reinforce and motivate children  to pay attention, make observations and
research. Teachers should make use of children’s curiosity and prediction
skills to improve their scientific understanding and thinking skills. for
children participating in scientific activities helps in improving the
cognitive, affective and psychomotor as well as scientific skills and
faciliates learning. The aim of this study is to reveal the views of preschool
education teachers about the preschool science education. The study was
designed as a descriptive scanning research. The participants of the study were
fifty preschool education teachers working at ten preschool institutions in
Afyonkarahisar province. The data of the study were collected through a survey
questionnaire with open-ended items. The questionnaire was reviewed by field
specialists at Afyon Kocatepe University. Based on the feedback from these
specialists the questionnaire was reorganized. Then, the questionnaire was
administered to the participants. The questionnaire is made up of two sections.
The first section includes four items about the demographical characteristcs of
the participants. The second one includes ten items about the the views of
preschool education teachers about the preschool science education. The
findings of the study showed that for the participants science activities at
preschool education level mostly contributed to cognitive gains. They reported
that they used experiment equipment for the science activities at preschool
education level. They also added that the most frequently used techniques in
these activities were visits, observation and demonstrations.

Keywords

pre-school teacher, science education, science activities, views on the science activities

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