Teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) importantly contributes to instructional quality and student outcomes. We aimed to complement the limited insights into preservice preschool teachers' PCK, and its association with opportunities to learn (OTL), during teacher training. We offered 162 first-to-final-year preservice preschool teachers…

Educators' self-efficacy influences their practice and thus determines the quality of teaching in early childhood education and care (ECEC). This study analyzed educators' self-efficacy to teach physical education (PE) and the differences between pre-service and in-service early childhood educators. Early childhood educators (N = 381) completed a…

The recently revised NAEYC position papers and the fourth edition of NAEYC's Developmentally Appropriate Guidelines (NAEYC. 2022. "Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs: Serving Children from Birth through Age 8," edited by S. Friedman, 4th ed. Washington: National Association for the Education of Young…

In 2022, the Boston Opportunity Agenda, the Birth to Eight Collaborative and the City of Boston's Office of Early Childhood partnered in the development of this survey of hundreds of early education professionals in the city of Boston, and then expanded its reach to total more than 600 respondents across the state. In it, educators and…

Pre-service early childhood teachers (PECTs) are expected to support young children's engaged and meaningful use of ICT for early learning and development. Unless teachers believe that ICT is beneficial for young children, they will be unable or unwilling to encourage and support children's use of ICT in educational environments. This paper aims…

The early years of a child's life are critical in supporting their physical development. As a result, early childhood teachers have a profound responsibility and influence on the development of young children's physical skills. However, up to this point, little attention has been placed on the development of early childhood teachers' pedagogical…

Stress has been shown to negatively impact early childhood teachers' abilities to provide high quality, responsive environments for young children. Previous studies of early childhood teacher stress have focused on the tasks and responsibilities inherent in the job as well as on structural conditions within the field of early childhood education.…

The present study aims to investigate perceptions of kindergarten administrators, preschool teachers, prospective preschool teachers and parents on the characteristics of a good preschool teacher. The phenomenology was used in the study as a qualitative research design. 11 kindergarten administrators working in kindergartens in a city center…

Integration of technology in schools rests on effective teacher education programmes that help teachers create new teaching and learning methods and adopt them for classroom use. Social learning processes play a key role in this, but there is a lack of understanding of their role in technology adoption and in evidencing them in teacher education…

This paper presents reflections on 12 years of school-wide professional development at a university-based preschool. The professional development focused on the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) Standards, Vygotskian strategies that emphasize assisted performance, joint activity, and verbal interactions. Both…

Due to the coronavirus pandemic affecting the world, face-to-face higher education practices were suspended in most countries, and teaching processes continued with distance education methods. This method has prevented university students from taking theoretical and practical courses face-to-face. In this regard, the teaching practice course,…

The goal of this study is to investigate the relation of self-esteem, hopelessness and communication skill; while testing self-esteem as an intermediary variable. The research, designed in survey model, has been conducted with preschool teacher candidates. The research group comprises 305 teacher candidates that volunteered for the research.…

This paper seeks to identify the impact of the undergraduate Early Years Initial Teacher Training (EYITT) qualification on the emerging professional identity of a group of undergraduate students. The research explored the practical and academic self-concepts of the trainee practitioners together with wider societal perspectives gained through an…

The great majority of teacher training programmes incorporate reflective practice as a fundamental professional competence since reflection is considered to be a key element in professional development. However, in the literature reflection is conceptualised in multiple ways, making it difficult to determine what types of contexts facilitate the…

Early childhood educators play a crucial role in supporting the development of our nation's youngest children. Research shows that the quality of interactions between adults and children is one of the strongest predictors of learning outcomes in early childhood classrooms, and that the difference between a more and less effective kindergarten…