RESEARCH ARTICLE
Pre-service Teachers' Representations About Children's Learning: A Pilot Study
Maria L. Pedditzi1, *, Marcello Nonnis1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2020Volume: 13
First Page: 315
Last Page: 320
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-13-315
DOI: 10.2174/1874350102013010315
Article History:
Received Date: 07/04/2020Revision Received Date: 17/07/2020
Acceptance Date: 30/7/2020
Electronic publication date: 13/11/2020
Collection year: 2020
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Research on teachers' representations of children's learning is currently ongoing.
Social representations are common-sense theories built and shared in everyday interactions. Their analysis can detect the possible differences between teachers’ naïve beliefs and scientific learning theories.
Objective:
The objective of this pilot study is to analyse the beliefs about children’s learning of a group of teachers. The beliefs will be related to the most acknowledged learning theories.
Methods:
A mixed methods research was employed to analyse 100 pre-service teachers’ representations of the origins of learning and the psychological processes involved.
Results:
It emerged from the results that the teachers interviewed consider children’s learning mainly as culturally acquired, which reveals the prevailing constructivist conception of learning. Many pre-service primary school teachers, however, tend to see learning as mere ‘transfer of information’; many pre-service kindergarten teachers perceive learning as ‘behaviour modification’. The most considered psychological aspects are ‘knowledge’ and ‘acquisition’, while emotions are barely considered.
Conclusion:
Linking implicit theories and disciplinary theories could support pre-service teachers in integrating the theory and the practice of learning so as to understand the way their models influence their educational choices.
