The research dimension in the pre-service education of kindergarten teachers: a look at practicum reports

Abstract

Part of a doctoral project titled “The research dimension in the pre-service education of kindergarten teachers: the report as a structuring element of practices of knowledge development”, the study here reported has as aims: (i) to understand the place and the configurations given to research in the elaboration of the practicum report; and (ii) to identify the contribute of the report (and of the research-educational experience therein) to the professional knowledge development of kindergarten teachers, according to the reports’ authors. For this purpose, a documental corpus of 176 reports elaborated in the time span 2010-2016 was collected in the context of the Masters in Pre-School Education taking place at two polytechnic public higher education institutions. The content analysis of selected sections of the reports and simple descriptive statistic procedures enabled us to identify the following main results: (i) the presence of research components in the reports; (ii) a research practice that allows to observe and identify problems emerging from pedagogical practice, and to reflect and act upon such problems; (iii) the report as a tool to promote the development of knowledge and research competences by the future kindergarten teachers.