Early childhood teachers'' belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics, and teaching intention for mathematics have positive effects on mathematics education for young children with teachers'' actions at the center of educational activities. Teachers also hold an important position as the substance of educational acts.
This study thus set out to investigate the effects of early childhood teachers'' belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics, which are important elements of high quality math education for young children, on their teaching intention for mathematics, which refers to active and aggressive participation in lessons, and relations between them, thus making a contribution to proper teaching methods for high quality math education for young children in the field of early childhood education.
For those purposes, the study set the following research questions:
First, what kind of correlation is there between early childhood teachers'' belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics and their teaching intention for mathematics?
Second, what kind of effect do their belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics have on their teaching intention for mathematics?
The subjects include 350 early childhood teachers in charge of four- or five-year-old classes at early childhood education institutions(private kindergartens and others) in Busan and Gyeongnam Province. Total 266 questionnaires were analyzed. Their belief was measured with the Early Childhood Teacher Educator Beliefs and Practices Questionnaire(ECTEBPQ) developed by Buldu(2003) to assess the belief and reality of constructivism and used by Shim Suk-yeong(2010). Their mathematics teaching efficacy was measured with the Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Scale for Elementary School Teachers used by Luo(2000) and translated and revised by Jeong Jeong-hee(2000). Their pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics was measured with the Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Mathematics Scale for Early Childhood Teachers developed by Hong Hee-ju(2012) and revised and supplemented by Park Ga-yeong(2016). Their teaching intention for mathematics was measured with the Teaching Intention Scale(TIS) developed by Wilcox-Herzog and Ward(2004) to examine how active teachers were with their interactions with young children, translated by Kim Yang-eun and Kim Yeon-ha(2008) for early childhood teachers in Korea, and revised and applied for math lessons by the investigator.
The findings were as follows: first, there were statistically significant relations between early childhood teachers'' belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics and their teaching intention for mathematics except for the traditionalist belief of teachers'' belief.
Secondly, the study examined the relative influences of their belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics on their teaching intention for mathematics and found that their pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics had explanatory power of 34% for teaching intention for mathematics, which was statistically significant. It was followed by mathematics teaching efficacy and constructivist belief in the order. Of subvariables of pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics, teaching and learning methods had explanatory power of 34% for teaching intention for mathematics. Of subvariables of mathematics teaching efficacy, belief in ability had the biggest impacts on their teaching intention for mathematics, being followed by constructivist belief and curriculum of pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics in the order.
Those findings indicate that early childhood teachers'' belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics, which are important elements of high quality math education for young children, had effects on their teaching intention for mathematics, which refers to their active and aggressive participation in lessons, making a contribution to proper teaching methods for high quality math education for young children in the field of early childhood education. Those findings imply that the organizational members should make efforts to increase teaching belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics, and teaching intention for mathematics for high quality math education for young children and that they should develop educational programs for teachers and provide various supports for them so that individual teachers can increase their belief, mathematics teaching efficacy, pedagogical content knowledge of mathematics, and teaching intention for mathematics.