What About Early Childhood Mathematics Education in Early Childhood Teacher Education?

Abstract

From existing research, it is known that early childhood teacher education provides few opportunities to learn mathematical content or mathematics pedagogical content knowledge. Furthermore, little is known about the extent to which teacher educators are qualified to teach early childhood mathematics within teacher education programs. This study investigates the frequency of opportunities to learn mathematical content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge. Additionally, we investigate some characteristics of teacher educators, namely the sources they use for professional development with respect to early mathematics education. We report descriptive results as well as correlations. The results indicate that opportunities to learn mathematical content knowledge and mathematics pedagogical content knowledge have increased over time. Moreover, the results indicate that teacher educator professional development formats that encourage professional exchange among teacher educators, experts in early mathematics education and in-service teachers may increase teacher educators’ competence in early childhood mathematics and thereby the frequency with which this topic is addressed in teacher education.