Digital storytelling in early childhood education: a pedagogical experience from pre-service teachers

Teachers' Sense of Efficacy: An Important Factor in School Improvement

This study determined the connection between professional dispositions and academic performance among Early Childhood Education (ECE) pre-service teachers at Central Mindanao University during the 2024–2025 academic year. Focusing on responsibility, integrity, sensitivity, enthusiasm, communication, and reflection, the research aimed to understand how these qualities impact academic success. The study included second and third-year ECE students, assessing their dispositions using the Bradley-Isaac Assessment and their academic performance via General Weighted Averages (GWAs). The findings revealed that early childhood education pre-service teachers have a high disposition, specifically exhibiting a very high level of responsibility towards their academic tasks and showing respect and awareness. Hence, responsibility, sensitivity, enthusiasm, and integrity are rated “Very High,” and communication and reflection are rated “High.” Further, the pre-service teachers have above-average academic performance. A correlational analysis was also conducted, and both disposition and academic performance were considered. Correlation analysis showed a significant relationship between academic performance and both communication and reflection (Renaildi et al., 2025). An important relationship exists between disposition and academic performance, specifically in communication and reflection. This suggests that these dispositions are directly related to academic success in this context. In addition, dispositions show strong correlations among themselves, indicating co-development. The study concludes that while CMU’s ECE pre-service teachers exhibit strong dispositions and academic achievement, the complex interplay between certain dispositions and academic success warrants further consideration in teacher education programs.

This paper considers the perceptions and teaching practices of Turkish pre-service early childhood education teachers with regard to nature-based teaching. Nature-based activities rarely take place in Turkish early childhood education settings; accordingly, there is a clear need to develop pre-service teachers’ professional experience related to nature-based teaching to empower them to support children’s learning in natural environments. In this study, eight pre-service teachers applied nature-based teaching in a professional experience placement over a period of 10 weeks. Clarke and Peterson’s (1986) model of teachers’ thoughts and actions guided this study in terms of understanding pre-service teachers’ related perceptions and practices. Qualitative data were collected through activity plans and semi-structured interviews, the findings from which revealed that the implementation of various activities using natural materials and the natural environment increased pre-service teachers’ self-confidence related to nature-based teaching. The primary barriers to the implementation of nature-based teaching activities were reported as being the attitudes of families and school management, weather conditions and pre-service teachers’ lack of knowledge of nature-based pedagogies. These barriers could be addressed by supporting pre-service early childhood teachers’ professional development and by affording them more opportunities to perform nature-related activities in early childhood settings.

본 연구의 목적은 예비유아교사의 자아탄력성, 전공만족도, 직무수행효능감이 진로성숙도에 미치는 영향력을 알아보는 것이다. 이를 위해 서울과 경기도 지역의 3년제 유아교육과 재학생 319명을 대상으로 설문조사를 실시하여 수집한 결과를 분석하였다. 연구 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 예비유아교사의 학년에 따라 자아탄력성, 전공만족도, 직무수행효능감, 진로성숙도에 차이가 있었으며, 특히 1,2학년과 3학년 사이에 통계적으로 유의한 차이가 나타났다. 둘째, 자아탄력성, 전공만족도, 직무수행효능감, 진로성숙도 사이에 통계적으로 유의한 상관관계가 나타났다. 셋째, 자아탄력성과 전공만족도, 직무수행효능감이 예비유아교사의 진로성숙도에 영향을 미치는 중요한 요인이었다. 이러한 결과는 예비유아교사들이 유아교사의 삶을 준비하고 직업세계로 안정적인 입문을 할 수 있도록 자아탄력성 및 전공만족도와 직무수행효능감 향상을 지원하는 교육프로그램의 필요성을 시사한다고 할 수 있다.The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of ego-resilience, major satisfaction, and job performance efficacy of pre-service early childhood education teachers on their career maturity. To this end, a questionnaire survey was conducted on 319 students of the three-year college of early childhood education in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, and the collected results were analyzed. The results of the study are as follows. First, there were differences in ego-resilience, major satisfaction, job performance efficacy, and career maturity according to the grades of pre-service early childhood education teachers, and in particular, there was a statistically significant difference between the first and second graders group and the third graders group. Second, it is found out that there are static correlations among the ego-resilience, major satisfaction, job performance efficacy, and career maturity of pre-service early childhood education teachers to each other. Third, it was found that ego-resilience, major satisfaction, and job performance efficacy were important factors affecting career maturity of pre-service early childhood education teachers. Among the variables, the effect of ego-resilience on career maturity was found to be the highest, followed by major satisfaction and job performance efficacy in order. These results imply the need for immediate previous education programs that supports the improvement of ego-resilience, major satisfaction, and job performance efficacy so that pre-service early childhood education teachers can prepare for the life of early childhood teachers and be provided with a stable entry into the professional world.

This study aimed to explore the changes in developing perceived dispositions of preservice early childhood education (ECE) teachers influenced by student teaching experience. A convergent mixed-method research design framework was used to collect data for the study. The study sample comprised 86 preservice teachers enrolled at a public university in Ankara, 14 university supervisors responsible for the student teaching experience, and 86 cooperating teachers from public and private schools who were assigned to preservice teachers during their student teaching experience. The results revealed that preservice ECE teachers’ teaching dispositions increased after the student teaching experience.

Self-efficacy and satisfaction of pre-service early childhood education teachers as a function of perceived needs and experiences

Science concepts comprehension is a foundation that allows students to create thinking constructions to another related concept or more complex concepts, facts, laws, principles, and theories in science. Understanding the concept of science is one of the important things required by early childhood education pre-service teachers as professional and competent educators in their fields. This research is an ex-post-facto research, with the aim of analyzing science concepts comprehension based on science process skills of the early childhood education pre-service teachers, especially on the subjects of the diversity of living things and environmental pollution. The subjects in this study were early childhood education students in semester VI of the 2021/2022 academic year. Analysis of science concept comprehension was carried out using the Certainty of Response Index (CRI) method. The results showed: 1) The Comprehension of Science concepts of early childhood education pre-service teachers with the criteria of understanding the concept (PK) is at 81.75%, not understanding the concept (TPK) at 4,90%, and misconceptions (M) at 13.34%; 2) The comprehension of science concept of early childhood education pre-service teachers based on high category science process skills are better than the science concept comprehension of early childhood education pre-service teachers with low category science process skills. The data obtained confirm that the comprehension of science concepts in early childhood education pre-service teachers is high. The comprehension of science concepts that owned by early childhood education pre-service teachers is directly proportional to their science process skills, the higher the science process skills of early childhood education pre-service teachers, the higher their science concepts comprehension.

Turkish early childhood pre-service teachers had to follow their student teaching practicum courses through emergency remote teaching on the online platform available to them during COVID-19 pandemic like in most countries. The pre-service teachers were experimenting with this new form of student teaching practicum by building up new knowledge and experiences without being present in the school context and having no interaction with the children. This study aims to analyse early childhood education pre-service teachers' experiences of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey and explore how these experiences shape their professional development to meet the quality standards and preschool teacher competencies. Doing a content analysis of the codes through a qualitative data analysis software program (NVivo 12) and making a constant comparison between codes and categories, three themes as a result of this study after doing a content analysis of the data, have emerged: (1) Early childhood education pre-service teachers’ practices in ERT supported only certain competencies. (2) With its natural structure of distance education, ERT restrained pre-service teachers' field experiences to enable them to gain the necessary competencies and qualifications for early childhood education (3) the pre-service teachers perceived ERT as insufficient for their placement experiences. There is a need for a regulation on how the practice in teacher education should be done in ERT since pre-service teachers' field placements have a crucial role in their training and there is a missing gap for practice during distance education. Keywords: Early childhood education, emergency remote teaching, COVID-19 pandemic, preservice teachers

Encouraging students in early childhood education programs to commit to teaching in low-resource areas remains a significant challenge. This study investigates the complex relationship between internship experience and vocational exploration and commitment (VEC) among pre-service early childhood education teachers in China’s low-resource regions. Through Structural Equation Modeling of data from 635 pre-service teachers at a Western China vocational college, we investigated the serial mediating effects of child-centered beliefs and teaching self-efficacy. Results revealed a counterintuitive negative relationship between internship experience and VEC. Specifically, students who had completed internships demonstrated significantly lower levels of VEC compared to those without internship experience. This relationship was partially mediated by teaching self-efficacy and serially mediated by both teaching self-efficacy and child-centered beliefs. These findings challenge assumptions about internship effectiveness and highlight the critical need for a nuanced understanding of pre-service teacher professional development. Our results suggest that merely providing internship experiences may be insufficient to enhance vocational commitment in educational settings.

TTo investigate how pre-service early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ self-confidence in teaching science was changed through their teaching practice course, a qualitative case study research design was used in the current study. The study involved 15 senior pre-service ECE teachers who were enrolled in a teaching practice course as part of their teacher education program. The study was created with their experiential learning opportunities in account. Participants developed five distinct science activity plans that are connected with several other disciplines and implemented their science activities in a real classroom environment for this purpose. Individual pre and post-interviews were conducted with them to investigate the change in their self-confidence in teaching science. The data analysis revealed four major themes: 1) prior knowledge and interest in science, 2) experience of teaching science in a real classroom, 3) expectation from teaching practice course, and 4) feelings when preparing activities and teaching science. The study’s findings revealed that a teaching practice course was quite helpful in enhancing preservice teachers' self-confidence in science teaching and changing their interests and feelings about science. The study's findings improved understanding of the importance of experiential learning and practicing in teacher education.

Digital stories are a form of expression that emerges by combining the art of storytelling with multimedia tools such as sound, picture, and video. In this research, examining the experiences of pre-service teachers in creating digital stories in accordance with the science curriculum and the effects of this process on the pre-service teachers’ self-confidence in technological pedagogical content knowledge was aimed. This research, using a mixed model approach, was conducted with 24 fourth-grade pre-service teachers. In the study, the “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Confidence Scale” (TPACK) was applied as a pre-test and post-test. The quantitative findings of the study revealed that the experiences of pre-service teachers in creating a scientific digital story increased statistically significantly in the TK dimension of the TPACK scale and in the TPACK total self-confidence scores. The qualitative findings of the research showed that it had a positive effect on TCK, TPK, and TPCK dimensions, as well as on the TK and total score of TPACK. In the light of these findings of the research, the use of digital stories in educational environments can be recommended since the use of digital stories in educational environments is effective in developing students' TPACK self-confidence perceptions. Keywords: mixed method, pre-service teachers, scientific digital story, technological pedagogical content knowledge

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reveal the contribution of the digital storytelling to the peer assessments experiences of pre-service teachers within the teaching practices.Design/methodology/approachThe study is carried out as a special case study. Both qualitative and quantitative data gathering tools were used together to investigate a special case in depth (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2011; Çepni, 2007). In this study, the case investigated was the process whereby the senior year pre-service teachers enrolled in the faculty of education provided assessments of themselves and their peers through the teaching practice course, using digital storytelling. The contributions of the assessment method employed, in the experiences and personal development of the pre-service teachers, were investigated through interviews with pre-service teachers involved.FindingsThe results suggested that pre-service teachers’ perspectives were quite positive toward the use of digital storytelling for peer assessment in their teaching practices. The prominent contributions were: they caused easily tolerate personally as they did not take a direct form, and that they considered peer assessment through digital storytelling as an alternative means of assessment to effectively reflect the process. Receiving more detailed feedback about their classroom experiences and their teaching skills was helpful for pre-service IT teachers. Suggestions due to the findings were also included.Originality/valueIn the study, peer assessment digital stories in the teaching practice courses offers the benefits of confidence with, different perspectives, satisfaction, and objectivity. These benefits can help pre-service teachers to focus on shortcomings regarding their teaching experiences, and take care for the correction. Further studies can be provided about the digital storytelling processes in various assessment processes of the instructions to reveal the potential of digital narratives in other domains as well.

Research Findings: Pre-service early childhood education (ECE) teachers face significant structural challenges in supporting children’s emotional development, particularly in low-resource areas of China. Systemic constraints, including limited teacher preparation resources and challenging working conditions, create barriers that affect teachers’ well-being and responsiveness to children’s emotional needs. To better understand teachers’ well-being and practice characteristics, this study examined 1,783 pre-service ECE teachers from less-competitive colleges in an economically underdeveloped and ethnically diverse Chinese province. Using latent profile analysis, we explored variations in teachers’ self-efficacy, emotion regulation strategies, and responsiveness to children’s negative emotions, identifying four distinct profiles: (1) “High Self-efficacy and Positive Responsiveness” (7.8%), (2) “Low Emotion Regulation Strategies and Negative Responsiveness” (6.4%), (3) “Low Self-efficacy and Negative Responsiveness” (60.5%), and (4) “High Emotion Regulation Strategies and Negative Reactions” (25.4%). We employed non-parametric tests to examine differences across academic background and contextual factors (internship institution types, internship duration, and perceived work climate) among the identified profiles. This person-centered approach highlights distinct profiles with unique risks and needs in low-resource settings. Practice or Policy: Our findings emphasize the need for tailored interventions to enhance self-efficacy and emotional regulation strategies. Policymakers should also create supportive, inclusive work environments and avoid rigid professional standards that harm teacher resilience and instructional quality.

Geometry concepts are essential to teaching in early childhood. Engaging early childhood in geometric thinking and spatial reasoning can support their overall mathematical and cognitive development. Preparing the mathematics learning process in early childhood, especially the concept of geometry, requires careful planning by paying attention to various aspects both from the psychological side of students and in terms of mathematics content. Early childhood education teachers must have the skills to plan math activities. The research objective was to see the ability of prospective early childhood education teachers to do math activities. The research method used is phenomenology, which examines the experiences of pre-service early childhood education teachers after attending the “Mathematics and Cognitive Development” lecture. The research results were obtained when designing the learning process of pre-service early childhood education teachers by paying attention to the aspects of providing meaningful experiences through games in introducing the concept of geometry.

The integration of technology into education is a substantial issue for supporting and updating teachers’ professional development in today’s world and bringing up digitally literate generations and well-educated human capital. Studies have shown that technology integration in education is a complex and multidimensional issue. TPACK transcends the triad of core knowledge types and comprises the basis for the effective integration of technology into teaching. Therefore, the present study sought to understand the contribution of the technology attitudes and usage, digital literacy skills, and online reading comprehension strategies in pre-service early childhood teachers’ TPACK competencies. The participants in the study were 481 voluntary pre-service early childhood teachers (female=398, male=83). The data were collected as a cross-sectional survey. The study findings revealed that pre-service teachers’ TPACK competencies are associated with their technology attitude and usage, digital literacy skills, and online reading comprehension strategies, as well as that the variables explained 38% of the variance. However, pre-service teachers’ grade level and GPA are not related to their self-reported TPACK competencies. These findings can be seen as signals of the necessity for theoretical knowledge and practice to be developed in pre-service teachers’ technology integration in education.