Entwicklung, Erprobung und Evaluierung eines Moduls zum Thema „Unbelebte Natur“ für die Erzieherinnenausbildung an Fachschulen für Sozialpädagogik (Tienda española)

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Today Germanys day nurseries and Kindergarten are more education facilities than
simply day-care centres. All Bundesländer have now issued plans, or recommendations
(„Bildungsempfehlungen‟) for early childhood education. Science education has thus
now found its way into the elementary sector. But the way from theory to practice is
problematic: pre-school teachers very often tend to avoid topics that relate to the
chemistry and physics. The initial position of this empirical study is the lack of
knowledge that future pre-school teachers often have, when it comes to chemistry and
physics. If pre-school teachers are expected to create a learning environment which
includes experimental science, it is essential that they have the capabilities to do so.
Hence, the question is how chemistry and physics can be integrated in vocational
training. After analysing the basic framework and theoretical foundations, a training
module containing science issues for students in Fachschulen für Sozialpädagogik
(FSP) was created, tested and evaluated. This process considered the former often
negative, individual experiences with science to generate in the students a new and
positive approach to science and especially chemistry.
Empirical Investigation
This research was developed under the aspects of Qualitative Social Research. The
empirical investigation was planned as an intervention study and accomplished in a
testing- and a final investigation at two Berufskollegs (FSP) in Nordrhein-Westfalen. A
basic idea in planning the module was that teaching science issues cannot happen
without using concrete visualisation. Therefore, it was considered to be very important
that the students had enough time to experiment on their own.
The hypotheses were as follows:
1. A new ‘sensitive’ approach to science and especially chemistry including
experiments can modify existing prejudices.
2. The instruction in combination with practical experimentation leads to knowledge
gains. The Students can recall the contents of the module after several weeks.
3. As pre-school teachers they communicate the learned content to children in
kindergarten.
II
To verify these hypotheses a multimethod approach – in qualitative research referred to
as „triangulation‟ – was chosen. The instruments combined were: participant
observation, pre- and posttests before respectively after the intervention, guided
interviews and follow-up (after subjects had completed their vocational training). To
analyse the received data, qualitative content analysis according to MAYRING (2002 &
2008) was used.
Results
The results do not clearly confirm the second hypothesis, although clearly support the
first and third. While a knowledge gain could only be recorded at a low level, the
subjects‟ attitude towards chemistry evidently changed from negative to positive. In
addition, the follow-up showed that the predominant majority of the interviewed
subjects benefit from their experiences made during the module class and they
continuously integrate science and chemical experiments into their work with
kindergarten children. The research experiences gained during the investigation led to
certain criteria concerning the contents of vocational training at FSP. Next to the
“criteria for experimenting with children” already phrased by LÜCK (2009, S. 147 ff.)
these were:
- The relation of practical (own experimentation) and theoretical (science back-
ground) contents should at least be 1:1.
Own experimentation is essential to allow the students to try a new and positive
affective approach to chemistry and physics.
- The study module should contain the development, performance and evaluation of
science learning for children.
These steps make clear to the students a direct connection from the learned science
content to their upcoming work in kindergartens. All future pre-school teachers should
at least once have tried to provide an experimental situation for children to be prepared
for their later job tasks.
This dissertation proposes an approach suitable to teaching the non-biological sciences
in such a way that it leaves a positive affective effect on the students. This positive
effect is great enough that science and experiments will be taught to children in
kindergartens