This paper is about the beliefs of Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers who have working experience in public schools and they are following post-graduate training in "Didaskalio" (an authorised institute of the University of Athens). We examine if and how their beliefs might affect their decision to enable themselves in particular Science Education activities with their students, when they'll be back to Kindergarten after their training. In a way, this paper forms an evaluation text for the viability of the Science Education's courses taking place in "Didaskalio".
In order to uncover the beliefs of ECE teachers we used the hypothesis that the decision of an individual to enable herself in a concrete way to an action, emerges from the reasoned consideration of her beliefs about the likely outcomes of the action (behavioral beliefs), the normative expectations of others (normative beliefs), and the presence of factors that may facilitate or impede performance of the action (control beliefs).
The results show that the ECE teachers appear to present strong intention to teach Science in their classes. But their training didn't change their beliefs, in a way compatible to the courses' aims. We consider that the main reason for this is related to the teachers' beliefs concerning the traditional "school Science" content.