Autonomous Exploration And Teacher-led Instruction In Preschool Settings

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Introduction
The authors sought to find out the use of science area and material by children during their free time. The author also sought to investigate whether a small change in the classroom group activities would lead to an increased attention to the science area. With a specific tool (the balance scale), the authors “marketed” the science area and wanted to find out whether knowledge of the tool would be increased.
Six urban preschool classrooms located in central New Jersey were investigated by the authors. While three of the classes were control, the other three were experimental. These are schools that have been contracted by the state for the provision of free early childhood education. The students that were investigated in the study were aged between 3 and 5 years and came from minority and low-income families. It is also significant to point out that about 90% of the students spoke Spanish and were in the process of learning English. 20 male and 22 female students were in the experimental classrooms while the control classroom was comprised of 10 male and 24 female students. There were individual interview portions done by the researchers and only children aged 4 years and above were allowed to do this. Since students who were absent in one or more intervention lessons were not post-tested, the authors ended up with a set of data from 15 students from the experimental group and 19 from the control group. There were more girls than boys in both groups.
Collection of data is an important part of the research study. The study was carried in three phases. During Phase I, the presence of the children in the science area during their free time was observed and recorded. Individual interviews were also carried done to determine their knowledge of balance scale prior to the intervention. In the second phase, two large group lessons about the tool were conducted in the experimental classrooms while in a different science topic discussion was conducted in the control group. In the third phase, the postintervention observations of the students in the science area, as well as interviews, were carried out.
According to the article, the materials that were used are bucket balance scale, countable items such as rocks, shells, and acorns, standard weights, and small countable items such as crayons and blocks. The authors also point out that they used color photographs of persimmon, marmoset, robot dog and statute.
The procedure for the first phase occurred over a number of days totaling 120 minutes for each classroom. The authors recorded the presence of teachers and the students in the science area during the first phase. After every 60 seconds, the number of adults and children present and their activity in the area were recorded. This was done to determine the amount of play that occurred in the science area and the interaction with materials particularly the balance scale. Individual interviews followed where the researchers gathered the knowledge of the students about the balance scale. In the second phase, random assignment of the classroom as either experimental or comparison was done. Two discussions regarding the balance scale wer...