STEM in Elementary Teacher Training in Austria

Maritta Schalk

1 a

, Sara Hinterplattner

2 b

and Barbara Sabitzer

1 c

Department of STEM Education, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

Linz Institute of Technology, Dynatrace Austria, Linz, Austria

Keywords:

STEM, Elementary Education, Teacher Training.

Abstract:

Knowledge and skills from STEM subjects are becoming increasingly important. It is therefore important that

these elements be implied in the curriculum of all educational institutions, starting already in elementary edu-

cation. For this purpose, the training of elementary teachers in this ﬁeld is very important and indispensable.

In Austria, STEM topics are included in the curriculum of the vocational secondary school at the Educational

Institute for Elementary Teachers. To ﬁnd out about the actual implementation and impact of their STEM

training, elementary teachers were asked to what extent they had become acquainted with the contents of

STEM subjects in their teachers training, also with regard to their transfer into practice. The results show that

the elementary teachers have received hardly any practical and theoretical information about the teaching of

STEM content in their training. Moreover, without additional training, most of the elementary teachers do not

feel prepared to teach the required STEM contents deﬁned in curricula for elementary education in their daily

work.

1 INTRODUCTION

In infants and toddlers 700 new neural connections

are created every second. This rapid brain develop-

ment, coupled with strong natural curiosity and drive

towards understanding the surroundings, presents

ideal conditions to present scientiﬁc inquiry to chil-

dren (Buchter et al., 2017). Moreover, research shows

that the early exposure to STEM (Science, Technol-

ogy, Engineering, and Mathematics) related activi-

ties supports children’s long term development and

achievements withing the ﬁeld: Meaningful experi-

ences with scientiﬁc phenomena by young children

have been found to increase self-belief in own abili-

ties to understand scientiﬁc subject matters and fos-

ter greater interest in science (Patrick et al., 2009).

Such experiences can also create an appreciation for

the role and inﬂuence science have on our lives (Fleer

et al., 2006). Consequently, children’s earliest ex-

periences with science, technology, engineering, and

mathematics might subsidize future engagement and

success in these ﬁelds (Hassan et al., 2019).

Teachers play a key role in fostering children’s

STEM inquiry, as they can not only provide a physi-

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5919-0441

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9601-433X

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1304-6863

cal learning environment, but help to provide context,

ask questions, connect previous knowledge to preset

experiences and provide language to articulate new

concepts (Buchter et al., 2017). Despite this, interna-

tional research shows that STEM related activities in

early childhood classrooms are rare. Science instruc-

tions are none frequent and teachers do not spend sig-

niﬁcant amounts of time on science-related subjects

in the classroom (L

uck, 2018; Nayfeld et al., 2011;

Tu, 2006). Currently, their emphasis is on language

and literacy development, with relatively little math

in preschool. It has been found that in an ordinary

preschool, as little as 59 seconds of a 360-minute day

(less than 0.3 percent of the students’ time) would be

spent on math, and that introductions to science and

engineering were rarely part of the curriculum (Far-

ran et al., 2007). Moreover, preschool teachers are

poorly trained to support STEM learning (Clements

et al., 2013). It is critical that early childhood pro-

fessionals are highly qualiﬁed and competent to sup-

port young children’s scientiﬁc inquiry, as the devel-

opmental sensitivity and natural curiosity at this age

must be utilized to provide a sound foundation for fu-

ture engagements in the ﬁeld of STEM (Clements and

Sarama, 2020; Worth, 2010).

Schalk, M., Hinterplattner, S. and Sabitzer, B.

STEM in Elementary Teacher Training in Austria.

DOI: 10.5220/0011858600003470

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2023) - Volume 2, pages 221-228

ISBN: 978-989-758-641-5; ISSN: 2184-5026

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

221

2 TRAINING FOR ELEMENTARY

TEACHERS IN AUSTRIA

In an international comparison, Austria is one of the

top performers in the ﬁeld of vocational education.

Nearly 76% of graduates from an upper secondary

school earn a vocational degree (Federal Ministry of

Education, Science and Research, 2021). The OECD

average is 38.4%.

One such school with a vocational degree is

the “Educational Institute for Elementary Pedagogy”,

which aims to train elementary teachers. This school

can be completed in 2 different ways: in the form

of a 2-year technical school with diploma, but with

the prerequisite of a maturity examination, univer-

sity entrance qualiﬁcation, or vocational maturity ex-

amination or a 5-year vocational secondary school

with diploma and Matura. In Austria, the Matura

is equivalent to a school-leaving qualiﬁcation from

a secondary school with an associated higher educa-

tion entrance qualiﬁcation and entitlement to attend a

college or university. There are some providers who

offer bachelor studies in the ﬁeld of elementary edu-

cation. However, compared to other countries, Aus-

tria is one of the few countries where the necessary

training for staff in elementary education is below the

bachelor’s level (European Education and Culture Ex-

ecutive Agency and Eurydice, 2019).

2.1 Secondary School Education

The curriculum of the 5-year vocational secondary

school with Matura and diploma is divided into 10

semester with a total of of at least 168 teaching hours

per week. In addition to general education, these also

include the subjects for vocational training for the

profession of kindergarten teacher in elementary ed-

ucational institutions. STEM subjects account for 28

hours per week (16.6% of the total number of hours

per week) and are divided as follows: Applied Mathe-

matics, Applied Natural Sciences, Biology and Ecol-

ogy, Chemistry, Fundamentals of Computer Science

and Media, and Physics (Federal Ministry of Educa-

tion, Science and Research, 2016). The subject Ap-

plied Natural Sciences was added to the curriculum

in 2016. Before this change in the curriculum, there

was no comparable school subject.

As can be seen in Table 1, with the exception of

Fundamentals of Computer Science and Media, di-

dactic content is anchored in the curriculum of all

subjects. Applied Mathematics accounts for the most

teaching hours (10 out of 28 hours per week).

The learning ﬁelds of number, space and form,

patterns and sequences, sorting and classifying, time

and frequency and coincidence are developed in the

school subject of Applied Mathematics, divided over

ﬁve years, with a view to transfer to the pedagogi-

cal occupational ﬁeld. In the school subject Physics

in 2 years on the one hand the naming of physical

phenomena and on the other hand accident preven-

tion, electric circuit, magnetism. In Chemistry, the

curriculum in the second and third year includes ex-

periments and related safety aspects as well as food

labeling, food ingredients. In the subject of Biol-

ogy and Ecology, nature observations, hygiene mea-

sures and dealing with children with special needs are

part of the curriculum in apprenticeship years one to

three. In terms of content, the subject of Applied Nat-

ural Sciences in the fourth year of teaching, in that

Biology, Chemistry and Physics have already been

completed in terms of content, takes up the follow-

ing natural science topics in the curriculum: Sustain-

ability, ecological footprint, energy, electric current,

forces, animate and inanimate nature, technology and

inventors, water, elements, soil, forest, time, measure-

ment, weather, sounds and noises, light, sky, bionics,

swimming-sinking, ﬂoating-ﬂying. The focus is on

using technical language appropriate to the age group,

formulating research questions, planning and imple-

menting experiments and series of experiments, and

explaining scientiﬁc relationships in a way that is ap-

propriate to the target group. As a further point, the

importance of scientiﬁc education for the child is re-

ﬂected (Federal Ministry of Education, Science and

Research, 2016).

It must be mentioned in this context that the teach-

ers employed in “Educational Institute for Elemen-

tary Pedagogy” are trained in teacher education in the

ﬁeld of secondary education as well as school subject-

speciﬁc content, but there is no requirement for expe-

rience or studies in elementary education.

2.2 Technical School Education

In the 2-year training in the form of the college

prospective elementary teachers are taught 143 hours

per week, divided into 4 semesters. The subjects

are related to pedagogical practice and the associ-

ated subject areas. Looking at the STEM content,

there are no speciﬁcations in the curriculum. Only

the topic of media education is addressed. In a school

autonomous extension area - nature and technology,

which can be freely selected by the training institu-

tion, the following contents are anchored in the cur-

riculum: scientiﬁc topics and information, scientiﬁc

methods, dealing with children’s questions, experi-

ments, job-related technical literature, recordings, se-

curing results, mobility and sustainability, colors -

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222

Table 1: Overview about the STEM subjects in the curriculum of the 5-year vocational secondary school.

Subject Semester Didactic Topics

Applied Mathematics

(10 teaching hours)

1+2 Learning ﬁeld “Numbers”

4 Learning ﬁeld “Space and shape”

6 Learning ﬁeld “Patterns and sequences” and “Sorting and clas-

sifying”

8 Learning ﬁeld “Time”

9+10 Learning ﬁeld “Frequency and coincidence”

Applied Natural Sciences

(3 teaching hours)

7+8 Sustainability, Ecological footprint, Energy, Electric current,

Forces, Inanimate and animate nature, Technology and inven-

tors, Water, Elements, Soil, Forest, Time, Measuring, Weather,

Sounds and noises, Light, Sky, Bionics, Swimming-Sinking,

Floating-Flying

Biology and Ecology

(6 teaching hours)

1+2 Hygiene measures in everyday situations

4 Nature observations

6 Dealing with people with special needs

Chemistry

(3 teaching hours)

4 Experiments and safety aspects of experiments

4 Food labeling and food ingredients

Fundamentals of Computer

Science and Media

(2 teaching hours)

1-4 no didactic contents in the curriculum

Physics

(3 teaching hours)

4 Name physical phenomena

6 Accident prevention, electric circuit, magnetism

color mixing - optics, basic experiences with duration,

temporal sequence, rhythms, seriality, patterns, struc-

tures (Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Re-

search, 2016).

3 METHODOLOGY

With regard to the actual implementation of the cur-

ricula in the training of elementary school teachers,

questionnaires were created and trained elementary

school teachers were asked what content they actually

learned in the course of their training. The question-

naires in form of a internet-mediated questionnaire

were sent to two different groups. On the one hand

to individuals, in order to ensure a deliberate cross-

section of different federal states in Austria, years

of service and public/private institutions, and on the

other hand shared via an internet platform for ex-

change between kindergarten teachers. The decision

to choose a questionnaire came from the fact that a

large number of questionnaires should ensure the di-

versity of elementary teachers with different training

institutions, different years of graduation, and thus

different teachers at the training institutions. This is

to ensure that individual teachers in the training cen-

ters do not distort the ﬁnal result. The questionnaire

consisted of two parts. The ﬁrst part of the questions

was with the help of a 4-part answer scale to deter-

mine how intensively the didactic topics of the teach-

ing contents in Applied Mathematics, Biology and

Ecology, Chemistry, and Physics listed in the curricu-

lum were really dealt with in the training (1- not dealt

with at all; 4- discussed in detail and explained with

practical examples). The question did not contain the

subject Applied Natural Sciences, because of the in-

troduction of Applied Natural Sciences in the curricu-

lum in 2016 resulting in the fact that the elementary

teachers participating in this study did not have this

subject in their training. All questions in this part refer

to the curriculum content of all subjects with STEM

content in secondary education for prospective ele-

mentary school teachers The second part of the ques-

tionnaire relates to the implementation in practice and

the question of how far the elementary teachers feel

prepared to implement the STEM content in kinder-

garten practice. There were four possible answers (1-

I feel prepared in this area; 2- thanks to further train-

ing I feel prepared; 3- I would have to read up on it

ﬁrst; 4- I can’t do anything with it). In the question-

ing all didactic topics in the STEM subjects (Applied

Mathematics, Applied Natural Sciences, Biology and

Ecology, Chemistry, Fundamentals of Computer Sci-

STEM in Elementary Teacher Training in Austria

223

ence and Media, Physics) from the curriculum were

included. The data collection method was chosen to

survey a large number of educators and to obtain open

and honest responses through anonymity. The stan-

dardized questions made it possible to systematically

record and compare the answers. It was mandatory

to answer all questions to complete the survey. Due

to the lack of proper STEM training in the technical

school education, only the 111 respondents with the

secondary school education were analyzed.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Experienced Intensity of Taught

Topics

The ﬁrst part of the questionnaire determines how in-

tensively the teaching contents listed in the curricu-

lum were really dealt with in the training. The results

show that all of the topics were discussed in detail

and explained with practical examples, but only for

3.60%-25.23% of the participants.

In sum, the answer “discussed in detail and ex-

plained with practical examples”, representing the an-

swer for the highest intensity of curriculum coverage,

was given 198 times (11.89%) by 63 different par-

ticipants (56.76%), the answer representing the sec-

ond most intensive coverage was given 328 times

(19.70%) by 95 different participants (85.59%), the

answer representing the second least intensive cover-

age was given 492 times (29.55%) by 106 different

participants (95.50%) and the answer “not dealt with

at all” representing the answer for the least intensive

coverage 647 times (38.86%) by 98 different partic-

ipants (88.29%). The distribution of given answers

can be seen in Figure 1.

When looking more into the depth, the topic that

was most discussed in detail and explained with prac-

tical examples was “Experiments and safety aspects

of experiments” (n=28) followed by “Nature observa-

tions” (n=24) , “name physical phenomena” (n=19)

, “Accident prevention, electric circuit, magnetism”

(n=18) , “Learning ﬁeld Frequency and coincidence”

(n=16) , “Learning ﬁeld Patterns and sequences and

Sorting and classifying” (n=14) , “Hygiene measures

in everyday situations” (n=13) , “Explain scientiﬁc

relationships in a way that is appropriate for the tar-

get group, transfer the acquired practical skills and

knowledge to the professional ﬁeld, reﬂect on the im-

portance of science education for the child” (n=11)

and “explain scientiﬁc relationships in a way that

is appropriate for the target group, transfer the ac-

quired practical skills and knowledge to the profes-

Figure 1: The distribution of given answers to all questions

in part 1 how intensively the topics were taught reaching

from 1 (“not dealt with it at all”) to 4 (“discussed in detail

and explained with practical examples”) by all participants.

sional ﬁeld, reﬂect on the importance of science ed-

ucation for the child” (n=11) , “Dealing with people

with special needs” (n=9) and “Learning ﬁeld Patterns

and sequences and Sorting and classifying” (n=9) ,

“Learning ﬁeld ”Numbers”” (n=8) and “Use technical

language appropriate to age, formulate research ques-

tions, plan experiments or series of experiments and

implement experimental designs.” (n=8) , “Learning

ﬁeld ”time”” (n=6) , and “Food labeling and food

ingredients” (n=4). The topic that was most men-

tioned as “not dealt with at all” was “Food labeling

and food ingredients” (n=67) followed by “Dealing

with people with special needs” (n=55) , “Use tech-

nical language appropriate to age, formulate research

questions, plan experiments or series of experiments

and implement experimental designs.” (n=54) , “Ex-

plain scientiﬁc relationships in a way that is appropri-

ate for the target group, transfer the acquired practical

skills and knowledge to the professional ﬁeld, reﬂect

on the importance of science education for the child”

(n=51) and “Learning ﬁeld Time” (n=51) , “Hygiene

measures in everyday situations” (n=48) and “Learn-

ing ﬁeld Frequency and coincidence” (n=48) and “ex-

plain scientiﬁc relationships in a way that is appropri-

ate for the target group, transfer the acquired prac-

tical skills and knowledge to the professional ﬁeld,

reﬂect on the importance of science education for

the child” (n=48) , “ learning ﬁeld Sorting and clas-

sifying” (n=45) , “Learning ﬁeld Numbers” (n=44)

, “Learning ﬁeld Patterns and sequences” (n=37) ,

“name physical phenomena” (n=27) , “Nature ob-

servations” (n=25) and “Accident prevention, electric

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Figure 2: Overview about the intensity of taught topics at the secondary school education for prospective elementary teachers.

circuit, magnetism” (n=25) , and “Experiments and

safety aspects of experiments” (n=22). An overview

of these results can be seen in Figure 2.

Sixty-three participants answered at least once

that the intensity of learning a topic was “discussed

in detail and explained with practical examples”

(56.76%) resulting in 48 participants who did not an-

swer this for any of the topics (43.24%). One partic-

ipant answered for all the topics that she/he/* did not

deal with them at all.

4.2 Teachers’ Self Conﬁdence in STEM

Implementation

The third part of the questionnaire relates to the im-

plementation in practice and the question of how far

the elementary teachers feel prepared to implement

the STEM content in kindergarten practice. The re-

sults show that most of the teachers are prepared

(56,15%), however, without additional training only

38.54% of the kindergarten teachers feel prepared for

the STEM content in practice. And also with ad-

ditional training, there are still 43.85% kindergarten

teachers who do not feel prepared for STEM topics in

kindergarten. The distribution of given answers can

be seen in Figure 3.

When looking more into the details about the

contents in teacher training, the teachers feel the

most prepared for the topic “Weather” (n=77),

followed by “Forest” (n=71) and “Sounds and

noises” (n=71), “Nature Observations” (n=66), “Wa-

ter” (n=64), “Learning ﬁeld Sorting and classify-

ing” (n=61), “Swimming-Sinking” (n=60), “Learn-

ing ﬁeld Patterns and sequences” (n=58), “Dealing

with people with special needs” (n=55), “Measure”

(n=54), “Hygiene measures in everyday situations”

(n=53), “Learning ﬁeld Numbers” (n=51) and “Sus-

tainability, ecological footprint” (n=51), “Elements”

(n=48), “Light” (n=44) and “Floating-Flying” (n=44),

“Learning ﬁeld Space and shape” (n=44), “Time”

(n=42), “Soil” (n=41), “Learning ﬁeld Time” (n=36),

“Inanimate and animate nature” (n=35) and “Sky”

(n=35), “Experiments and safety aspects of experi-

ments” (n=28), “Technology and inventors” (n=22)

and “Physical phenomena” (n=22), “Energy, elec-

tric current” (n=19), “Forces” (n=18), “Learning ﬁeld

STEM in Elementary Teacher Training in Austria

225

Figure 3: The distribution of given answers to all questions

in part 2 how far the elementary teachers feel prepared to

implement the STEM content in kindergarten practice.

Frequency and coincidence” (n=17), “Food label-

ing and food ingredients” (n=16), “Accident pre-

vention, electric circuit, magnetism” (n=15). The

topic were the teachers answered “I can’t do any-

thing with it” the most often was “Bionics” (n=40),

followed by “Forces” (n=25), “Technology and in-

ventors” (n=21), “Energy, electric current” (n=19),

“Learning ﬁeld Frequency and coincidence” (n=17),

“Name physical phenomena” (n=16) and “Food la-

beling and food ingredients” (n=16), “Experiments

and safety aspects of experiments” (n=15), “Accident

prevention, electric circuit, magnetism” (n=14) and

“Sky” (n=14), “Soil” (n=13), “Light” (n=12), “Inani-

mate and animate nature” (n=11), “Elements” (n=10),

“Time” (n=10), “Measure” (n=10) and “Floating-

Flying” (n=10), “Swimming-Sinking” (n=7), “Sus-

tainability, ecological footprint” (n=6) and “Water”

(n=6), “Dealing with people with special needs”

(n=5), “Forest” (n=5) and “Weather” (n=5), “Hygiene

measures in everyday situations” (n=4) and “Learn-

ing ﬁeld Time” (n=4), “Sounds and noises” (n=3),

“Learning ﬁeld Numbers” (n=2), “Learning ﬁeld Pat-

terns and sequencies” (n=2), “Learning ﬁeld Space

and Shape” (n=2), “Learning ﬁeld Sorting and clas-

sifying” (n=2), and “Nature observations” (n=2). An

overview of these results can be seen in Figure 4.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The Teaching about the didactic implementation of

STEM topics in the training of elementary teachers

is anchored in the curriculum in the subjects Applied

Mathematics, Applied Natural Sciences, Biology and

Ecology, Chemistry and Physics of the vocational sec-

ondary schools in Austria. In comparison, the expe-

riences of 111 interviewed elementary school teach-

ers show that the content has not been taken up and,

above all, has not always been worked on in terms

of how it can be integrated in the elementary schools.

Observations of nature, weather and sound and noises

stand out as topics that were more dealt with in the

class. However, there are also topics where not even

20% of elementary educators feel prepared, to include

it in there everyday work in elementary school. A

clear picture emerges from the study: the experiences

of the elementary educators do not for the most part

match the content from the curriculum that is actually

mandatory to teach. Accordingly, it can be concluded

that more than 2/3 of the elementary teachers were

not sufﬁciently prepared by the training alone for the

teaching of STEM content by the school.

6 DISCUSSION

Looking at the growing shortage of STEM special-

ists, it is obvious to support projects to spark the chil-

dren’s interest in STEM. Introducing children to the

fascinating aspects of STEM content at an early age

is an important step for children to develop a positive

association with this branch of science (Patrick et al.,

2009; Fleer et al., 2006; Hassan et al., 2019). How-

ever, in order for students to experience such content

in the most positive and afﬁrmative way possible, ba-

sic training for pedagogues from a subject oriented as

well as a didactic point of view is necessary (Buchter

et al., 2017). Nevertheless, elementary school teach-

ers have little training to transfer their STEM knowl-

edge into their practice (Clements et al., 2013). As the

study shows, this is also the case in Austria: Didactic

STEM training does not sufﬁciently take place as part

of the education of elementary teachers. It is there-

fore even more important to provide further training

that conveys both the professional expertise and the

practical transfer that is lacking, as the questionnaires

indicate.

Moreover, the results show how unprepared ele-

mentary teachers feel for the STEM subjects. Cor-

responding to the results of previous scientiﬁc stud-

ies it was shown that the teachers were mostly pre-

pared for teaching observations of nature in elemen-

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226

Figure 4: Overview about the teachers’ self conﬁdence in STEM implementation in elementary schools regarding the curricu-

lum’s topics.

tary classes (L

uck, 2018). In most subjects the trans-

fer to the practice was missing to non existent. A

reason for this lack could be the training of teachers

working at the secondary schools to educate future el-

ementary school teachers. They are educated in a spe-

ciﬁc subject, such as Physics,Chemistry or Maths and

do not have to show any previous training or practice

in the ﬁeld of elementary education. In this context,

the question arises as to how teachers without experi-

ence in this area are supposed to convey the didactic

transfer to the professional ﬁeld of elementary school

teachers.

Furthermore, the issue surfaces whether the teach-

ing of STEM topics should not actually be part of spe-

cial didactic subjects and not the science subjects, as

is the case, for example, with language aspects. This

results in a call for a revision of the curriculum for

STEM subjects and in line with the last paragraph, di-

dactic or better and more speciﬁc training for teachers

of STEM subjects.

STEM in Elementary Teacher Training in Austria

227

Additional, there is the problem that the students

in the vocational secondary education have to go

through the topics for the early ﬁnal examination (part

of the Matura) in one of the science subjects (incl. Ge-

ography, excl. Mathematics). As a result, the content

related aspect of the STEM curriculum predominates

in contrast to the options of the pedagogical imple-

mentation.

In sum, the study shows that the education in

the vocational secondary school does not sufﬁciently

train the elementary teachers in the area of imple-

mentation of STEM topics. As mentioned before,

the lack of training of their teachers in the Educa-

tional Institutes for Elementary Pedagogy, the focus-

ing on the Matura and therefore less time for transfer-

ring their knowledge and implement it the elementary

schools, and the curriculum of the STEM subjects as

well as Didactic in vocational secondary school might

be reasons for this issue. Furthermore, for the al-

ready trained elementary teachers, training in the area

of STEM subjects would not only be recommend-

able but also indispensable in order to enable a high-

quality educational offer in the area of STEM in el-

ementary schools. Looking at the long way of re-

vising the curriculum, the lack of training provides

a sensible opportunity for elementary teachers in the

STEM ﬁeld. It is important to include the results of

the study and to design a teacher training course that

encourages and enables elementary teachers to imple-

ment STEM in elementary school. The results of this

study cannot be generalized to all worldwide forms

of training for early childhood educators because the

collected data was limited to institutions and early

childhood educators within Austria. Additionally, the

educators who ﬁlled out the questionnaires voluntar-

ily participated and therefore may not necessarily be

representative of educators from other types of train-

ing and other countries.

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