Student teachers' and preschool children's questions about life — A phenomenographic approach to learning

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European Early Childhood EducationResearch JournalPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/recr20

Student teachers' and preschoolchildren's questions about life —A phenomenographic approach tolearningIngrid Pramling Samuelsson a , Eva Johansson a , BirgittaDavidsson a & Brigitta Fors aa Göteborg University , SwedenPublished online: 15 Jun 2007.

To cite this article: Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson , Eva Johansson , Birgitta Davidsson &Brigitta Fors (2000) Student teachers' and preschool children's questions about life — Aphenomenographic approach to learning, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal,8:2, 5-22, DOI: 10.1080/13502930085208541

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European Early Childhood Education Research Journal Vol. 8, No. 2, 2000

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S tudent Teachers" and Preschoo l Chi ldren's Q u e s t i o n s A b o u t Life

- A P h e n o m e n o g r a p h i c A p p r o a c h to Learning

INGRID PRAMLING SAMUELSSON, EVA JOHANSSON, BIRGITTA DAVIDSSON & BRIGITTA FORS

G6teborg University Sweden

S U M M A R Y The Swedish Higher Education Ordinance (H6gskoleJ3rordning, 1993) outlines a set of goals for the education of preschool teachers. These goals state that education should help student teachers ~ to develop a capacity for identifying and working with issues of an existential, ethical, ecological, international and cultural character in preschool. Previous research (Hartman, 1986; Johansson, 1992; Pramling & Johansson, 1995) indicates that preschool teachers find children's questions about life complicated to handle. The purpose of the present study was threefold. Firstly, an empirical study aimed to find out and describe students" perspectives of children's questions about life, that is, children's search for meaning in their experience of living. Secondly, an intervention study aimed to develop students" competence in working with preschool children's questions about life and to offer students a phenomenographical oriented pedagogy to use in their future work. Finally, we wanted to compare these students" ways of experiencing with those of the students" involved in a traditional oriented pedagogy at another university.

The results show a significant change in the preschool teacher trainees" experiences of how they considered children's questions about life and the strategies for working with these questions in preschool. After the intervention study was completed, the students emphasised the importance of finding the child's point of view and of tackling the child's questions together. The students found that their roles and the questions were a tool for helping children develop their thinking and understand the world around them.

RESUMF: L'arr~td relatif ?z l'dducation supdrieure suddoise (H6gskolef6rordning, 1993) prdsente un ensemble de buts pour la formation des enseignants du prdscolaire. Selon ces buts, la formation devrait aider les dtudiants ?~ ddvelopper des capacitds ?z identifier eta travailler les questions ~ caract~re existentiel, dthique, dcologique, international et culturel clans les dtablisements prdscolaires. Des recherches ant&ieures (Hartman, 1986 ; Johansson, 1992; Pramling & ]ohansson, 1995) indiquent que les enseignants du prdscolaire pensent que les questions posdes par les enfants sur la vie sont difficiles a traiter. L'objectif de cet article est triple. Tout d'abord, il s'agit de prdsenter une dtude empirique visant a ddgager et ddcrire le point de vue des dtudian ts sur les questions des enfants sur la vie, c'est-~-dire sur leur recherche de signification au sein de leur expdrience de vie. Ensuite, nous dvoquerons une dtude- intervention visant ?l ddvelopper les compdtences des dtudiants dans le travail des questions des enfants d'dge prdscolaire sur la vie, e ta leur offrir une p~dagogie phdnom~nographique a utiliser dans leur futur travail. Enfin, nous avons voulu comparer cette fa¢on de procdder avec la pddagogie traditionnelle dans laquelle sont impliquds des dtudiants d'une autre universitd.

Les rdsultats montrent un changement significatif dans l'expdrience des enseignants du prdscolaire, au cours de leur formation, en ce qui concerne la fa~on dont ils consid~rent Ies

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6 European Early Childhood Education Research Journal

questions des enfants sur la vie et les stratdgies pour travailler ces questions dans les dtablissements prdscolaires. Une fois l'dtude-intervention terminde, les dtudiants ont soulignd l'importance de connaftre les points de vues des enfants et d' aborder ensemble leurs questions. Les ~tudiants trouvent que leur r6le et que les questions des enfants constituent un instrument pour les aider ?~ ddvelopper leur pensde et leur comprdhension du monde environnant.

Z U S A M M E N F A S S U N G Die schwedische Hochschulverordnung (H6gslolef6rordning, 1993) setzt eine Reihe von Zielen fiir die Ausbildung von Vorschullehrern. In diesen Zielen wird festgelegt, dass die Ausbildung den Lehrerstudenten behilflich sein soil, eine Kapazita't fiir die Identifizierung und die Arbeit mit Themen von existentiellem, i~kologischem, internationalem und kultureIlem Charakter in der Vorschule zu entwickeln. Friihere Forschung (Hartman, 1986; Johansson, 1992; Pramling & Johansson, 1995) weist daraufhin, dass Vorschullehrer die Konfrontation mit den existentiellen Fragen der Kinder kompliziert finden. Die gegenwfirtige Untersuchung hatte drei Anliegen. Erstens sollte die empirische Untersuchung die Perspektiven der Studenten beziiglich der existentiellen Fragen der Kinder beschreiben, nfimlich die Suche der Kinder nach dem Sinn ihrer Lebenserfahrungen. Zweitens hatte die Untersuchung den Zweck die Kompetenz der Studenten beim Arbeiten mit den existentiellen Fragen der Kinder im Vorschulalter zu entwickeln und fiir ihnen fiir die kiinftige Arbeit eine phiinomengrafisch orientierte Piidagogik zu bieten. Schliefllich wollten wir die Erfahrungen dieser Studenten mit den Erfahrungen yon Lehrerstudenten einer anderen Universit~'t, die sich mit einer traditionelI orientierten Pddagogik besch?iftigten, vergleichen.

Die Ergebnisse zeigten eine bedeutende Anderung der Erfahrungen der Lehrerstudenten im Praktikum beziiglich deren Betrachtungsweise der existentiellen Fragen der Kinder und der Strateg&n, die sie fiir die Arbeit mit diesen Fragen in der Vorschule als anwendbar empfanden. Die Studenten betonten die Bedeutung des Findens einer Antwort auf die Fragen der Kinder und der Behandlung dieser Fragen gemeinsam mit den Kindern. Nach der Beendung der Interventionsuntersuchung empfanden die Studenten, dass sowohl ihre Rolle als auch ihr Verstehen der Fragen der Kinder ein Werkzeug waren den Kindern zu helfen, ihr Denken zu entwickeln und ihre Umwett zu verstehen.

RES UMEN E1 Decreto de Educaci6n Superior de Suecia (H6gskolef6rordning, 1993), destaca una serie de objetivos para la formaci6n de maestros de Educaci6n Infantil. Estos objetivos establecen que la formaci6n debe ayudar a los estudiantes de magisterio a desarrollar la capacidad de identificar y saber manejarse con respecto a asuntos de indole existencial, dtica, ecol6gica, internacional y cultural que suelen afectar a la escuela infantil. Las investigaciones anteriores (Hartman, 1986; Johansson, 1992; Pramling y Johansson, 1995) indican q ue a los maestros de preescolar les resulta diflcil afrontar las preguntas de los nifios sobre la vida. Este estudio tiene tres prop6sitos. Primero, el estudio empirico, tuvo por objeto averiguar y describir las perspectivas de los estudiantes en Io referente alas preguntas de los nifios sobre la vida, esto es, c6mo los ni~os buscan dar significado a sus experiencias vitales. Segundo, el proceso de intervenci6n, se enfoc6 a desarrollar la competencia de los estudiantes para trabajar con las preguntas de los nifios sobre la vida y a ofrecer a los estudiantes una pedagogia, de orientaci6n fenomenol6gica, que ellos pudieran utilizar en su futuro trabajo profesional. Por ~ltimo, se trat6 de comparar la forma en que estos estudiantes vivfan la experiencia en contraste con la forma de vivenciarla por parte de estudiantes de otra universidad.

Los resultados demuestran que hay un cambio significativo en las percepciones que los estudiantes de magisterio presentan en relaci6n a c6mo ellos consideran las preguntas de los ni~os sobre la vida y e n las estrategias que consideran apropiadas para trabajar con estos temas en el preescolar. Una vez concluida la fase de intervenci6n, los estudiantes enfatizaban la importancia de averiguar el punto de vista del ni~o y abordar conjuntamente sus preguntas. Los estudian tes de magisterio constataron que su propio role y las preguntas eran un instrumento para ayudar a los nifios a desarrollar su pensamiento y comprender el mundo que los rodea.

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I. Pramling Samuelsson, E. Johansson, B. Davidsson & B. Fors

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Keywords: Existential questions; Phenomenography; Teacher education; Preschool children.

Introduction

This study focuses on the experiences of student teachers as they deal with children's questions about life in the preschool setting. The aim is to investigate and describe the students' experiences and to try out a phenomenographically oriented pedagogic theory in order to develop a better understanding of children's life questions. The study includes an empirical phase and an intervention phase. The aim of the empirical phase is to explore and describe qualitative differences in the students' experiences of children's life questions. In the intervention phase the aim is to create qualitative changes in the students' experiences of the phenomena. This means that the students should comprehend children's questions about life as a common platform for learning, which is their responsibility to expand.

Life questions - children's reflections about life

Life questions are related to the cultural context as well as the immediate world (Durkheim, 1961; Hundeide, 1989). The questions express a search for meaning and emerge from reflections upon a life situation. Children's reflections on the meaning of life emanate from their experience of daily life and influence their view of the world. Their questions can be expressed as ponderings, questions, expressions and themes in play and may emanate from interactions with peers and adults (Bri~ning, 1990; Hartman, 1978, 1986; Matthews, 1982; Vygotsky, 1978).

A phenomenographic approach to learning

Of vital importance for the whole study is the approach to learning, which is based on the acceptance of human experiences of different phenomena as a non-dualistic relation between man and reality. This approach argues against theories of learning that maintain knowledge either as innate reflexes responding from outer stimuli, or as an individual construction of the outside world (Marton & Booth, 1997). Instead it is claimed that knowledge consists of a relation between people and the world. The way we understand the world around us cannot be distinguished from the world we live in, although there is always certain phenomena in this world that stands out, which has a particular importance or an important meaning to us. Our experiences gain signifi- cance against a background of earlier experiences, which are historical, social and cultural (Merleau-Ponty, 1945). Thus learning is seen as a question of how someone experiences, sees or makes sense of the world. This is consistent with the phenomenographic approach for research methodology and pedagogy, outlined by Marton and Booth (1997).

Different ways students and children approach learning

Research has shown that children and adults have different approaches to learning in the way in which the learning situation is experienced as well as the way it is handled. The approach to learning adopted by an individual in a situation is a combination of the way in which she or he experiences learning and the way she or he experiences the situation. Learning in this context is our way of experiencing the world around us that

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is, how we see, make sense of or understand different phenomena in our surrounding world. Our ways of experiencing also have a bearing on our practice. When people act they do so on the basis of experience. Studies have also shown that people differ in their approaches to learning depending on the content and the subject at hand (see Marton, 1970; S/ilj6, 1975; Marton & S/ilj6, 1976a, 1976b; S~ilj6, 1982; Marton & Booth, 1997; Neuman, 1987; Pramling, 1989, 1994, 1996).

Metacognition

In metacognitive studies of children, results show that children's learning have improved when their ways of experiencing the phenomenon, the situation and their own ways of thinking - their metacognitive awareness - have been made visible to them (Pramling, 1989,1994,1996). From these studies the phenomenographical devel- opmental pedagogy has developed and been refined. In the present study we use this approach as a base for research to improve the learning of adults. The study focuses mainly on a metacognitive aspect (Pramling, 1987, 1988), i.e. the students ' awareness of their ways of experiencing and approaching children's questions about life.

The empirical phase

Categories of experience

The phenomenographic approach points to the importance of finding out the different ways in which people experience the phenomena investigated. Experiences should not be confused with attitudes or opinions, but represent what occurs in an individual 's ways of thinking or seeing or understanding different phenomena. Thus the aim of the empirical phase is to explore and describe qualitative differences in the students" experiences of life questions posed by children and the students" proposed strategies for working with these questions. Discovering and describing qualitatively different categories of experiences on the basis of what people express is the outcome of the phenomenographical research approach (see e.g. Marton, 1981, 1988; S~ilj6, 1982; Pramling, 1983). It is important to point out here that the phenomenographic research methodology is being used to generate data (the empirical phase) which also will serve as a pedagogical 'aid" for the researchers (the intervention phase).

Research sample

The main project group consists of two classes of students, (n= 46), who participated in the project during three terms. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 45 years. A comparison group of 19 students attending preschool education courses at two other universities were also interviewed at the end of their education (six terms). This comparison allowed the researchers to view the teacher trainees from a traditional education perspective alongside those in the project group. The content 'children's life questions' has been part of the education of both the project and the comparison groups. However, the manner in which it has been taught differs between the two groups.

Research procedures

The project started during the third term of the preschool education course and was completed in the last term. Data for the research project were collected through

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interviews before and after the project. The interviews were designed to find out about the students ' experiences with preschool children's life questions, their methods for dealing with the questions in preschool and the students potential for change.

The interviews were based on the Piagetian clinical method (Piaget, 1926). The questions concerned the students" ideas about what kinds of life questions children work with, the students ' methods for dealing with the questions in preschool, and, finally, how the students would handle life questions in a multicultural preschool group. The second interview included the original questions plus additional questions referring to learning and development and the students ' experiences of the project.

The interview transcripts were analysed by being read through repeatedly. The analysis aimed to discover differences and similarities in the subjects' ways of experiencing the phenomena at hand. All the experiences emanating from the data were categorised. This procedure is hermeneutic, in that one gets a progressively clearer picture in terms of a pattern during the time one works with the data (Odman, 1979).

The intervention phase

The work in the intervention phase had two levels. One level was to make the students change in a certain direction by using a phenomenographically oriented pedagogy. The other level was to make this pedagogy and the tools used visible for the students so that they would be able to use the pedagogy in their future practice as preschool teachers.

Phenomenographical pedagogy

First, the most fundamental task within this work was to arrive at an understanding of how the student experienced aspects of the content (Pramling, 1994). Second, two important principles for exploring students' ways of understanding something (Marton & Booth, 1997), constituted the educational tool used in the intervention phase: (1) getting students to reflect upon and verbalise life questions related to the self, the children and the profession; and (2) making the diverse ideas of individual students visible to the group of students. Third, as a base for the work the teachers also had to consider in what direction the students ' experiences should change and develop. The goal for this was based on the National Curriculum (Utbildningsdepartementet, 1998) which claims that the ethical values of democracy constitute the base for the work in preschool. Consequently, our purpose was to help the students comprehend children's questions about life as a common platform for learning, which is their responsibility to expand. This means to confirm, make visible and extend the child's thoughts. The students were not to adopt one specific perspective, but enhance their capacity to meet with and support the child's thinking, to respect each child, whatever her or his life questions or perspectives are. The same principle applied to the teachers working in the intervention study.

Methods

In previous studies (Pramling, 1988) it became obvious that the metacognitive perspective is brought out when the teacher is focusing on different ways of thinking in her or his work and consequently opportunities for reflection are created.

Thus, the methods used in the intervention study were various and at tempted to facilitate reflective thoughts and expressions. Interviews, keeping a diary, working with ethical dilemmas were activities used to encourage students ' reflections. In order to make subjects change their understanding qualitatively the researchers had to

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create an awareness of the phenomena among the students. This was done by posing sometimes provocative questions, discussing the answers and asking the students about their motives. The shift between the student's perspective to that of the child assisted the students in finding or become aware of children's questions about life and their own thinking about these phenomena (Bengtsson, 1994). In the actual context of the preschool, the students were encouraged to 'search for' children's life questions, how the preschool teachers worked with these questions and reflect upon in what way the students would have dealt with the questions themselves. By exposing the students to different ways of understanding children's questions about life, both the variation and the multiplicity of the ideas became visible. Another method employed was child interviews, to analyse the results from the interviews. The students were to interview children, to analyse the results from the interviews and from these try to infer suitable methods to meet with the children's pondering on their questions about life. Creative activities such as reading and analysing stories, writing poems, painting, acting with puppets, etc. served the students with moments for reflection and useful methods of working with children. The following section contains a description of two examples from the subjects of ethics and pedagogy.

Example I: Ethics - Working with values

The aim of following activity was to make students aware of their own values, attitudes, goals and interests (Sk61d & Steinberg, 1979). By having to choose from different alternatives, accept the consequences, become disposed to act in accordance with the choice and stand up for it in the group, the student was forced to work actively with his or her own process of forming values.

The students were introduced to one problematic situation where they had to make one choice from four different solutions. This example comes from a preschool where the children are of five different nationalities and the parents profess to different religious cultures, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, a Free Church and the Swed- ish Church. Some of them would probably be quite hesitant about their children taking part in the Christmas preparations.

Now let's imagine it is Advent and Christmas time is getting close. The beautiful Christmas Cr6che with Mary, Joseph and Jesus, the stable and animals is placed on a table as in previous years. Some of the children are fascinated by the Cr6che and like to sit in front of it watching and talking about the figures. They know they are not allowed to play with the figures but they enjoy just looking. You and your colleagues have decided to let the children make some Christmas preparations, just like you always do around this time of the year. The children are to make presents, angels and small gingerbread biscuits. You know that some parents would not let their children make presents for Christmas, on the other hand you know that these children would love to make Christmas preparations. How would you handle the situation? Call the parents for a talk, leave the choice to the children, plan for alternative activities or do as you always do?

Each student had to reflect upon the problem and quite quickly try to find the best solution. After listening to each other's opinions, the students had to turn to the nearest group and try to make them understand their own point of view and, if possible, make them change their minds and join their own group.

When the students talked within their own group they noticed that although they had made the same choice, their motives, goals and decisions about what was good for the children sometimes differed. This resulted in some students changing groups. The students found these exercises useful and interesting. The problems

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became more apparent and their own choice more important to the students because they had to make their s tandpoint visible, give their motives and argue for them. The process of forming values thus became a personal concern.

Example II: Pedagogy- Opportunities for reflection

This activity sought to encourage students to reflect on children's questions about life and to exemplify methods for working with such questions in preschool. The choice of stories was deliberate in an effort to include children's life questions and to stimulate a dialogue from the perspective of both adults and children.

The work began with a story being read aloud. The story selected is about the friendship between Lasse and Mimmi, two six years old children, who share a secret and reflect on how death may occur to an ant. The short story begins with Lasse showing Mimmi his graveyard for ants. He shows her the small matchboxes prepared with cotton where the ants lie. The dead ants each have a name, and Lasse tells Mimmi the cause of death for each (Sundvall, 1986).

Each student reflected a few minutes and visualised their picture of the story. They then jointly discussed the message and what the story told each of them. The students noticed differences related to the content that appeared to them and how they thought about this content. To some students the story concerned respect for life. The story reminded another student of the meaninglessness and unjustness of death. For still another, the story was about friendship. The students also found differences between their own thinking and these children's thoughts about death. The children in the story help us to defuse death was one reflection from a student.

A discussion about how a teacher can use a story as a starting point for working with life questions posed by preschoolers followed. In order to further demonstrate the variation in thoughts and ideas all the work with the stories was documented and displayed at an exhibition.

R e s u l t s

The results will be presented as categories of experiences. Students ' experiences of their strategies for working with children's questions about life will be described in terms of how they see their own role as teachers. First follows a brief description of the students ' experiences of what children's life questions are all about, both at the beginning and at the end of the project.

The students" perspectives of children's life questions

At the start there were close points of similarity among the students in the intervention group and the comparison group. When the students tried to imagine what kind of life questions children might consider, the students pointed to areas which relate to personal experiences from their own childhood. Some of them had not thought of these questions before. The comparison group found it difficult to remember the subject from their training and there were some students who were not able to define the area at all.

The most frequent examples of children's life questions described by the students were linked to life and death. The students pointed out that children want to know how and why, what has happened before they were born and what will happen after death. Another frequent theme was religion. Other themes appeared less regu- larly and included what students talked about as children's emotional states, differences in how people look and behave, thoughts about the mysterious origin of the

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earth, fears concerning the environment in respect to a future and other questions about natural science.

At the time of the second interview the view of children's life questions had expanded considerably among the students who participated in the intervention phase. Instead of relating the individual questions categorised into themes such as death and religion, the students now talked about life questions as a common part of the child's philosophy of its daily world. The students described life questions more like a general concept than separate questions. This way of defining life questions is not found in the first interview or in the comparison group. They now reeognised life questions more often and in other ways. They also recognised life questions in children's verbal expressions, which they might not have noticed earlier, or which they would have related to the theme of natural science.

Working with life questions in preschool

This question is described in categories based on variations in the students' experiences. The categories illustrate different ways in which the students expressed their thinking, i.e. what to the student stands out, becomes outlined and has a meaning (Marton, 1992; Bengtsson, 1993). The categories are exemplified by quotations in order to give the reader an opportunity to validate the categories. Each person may express ideas fitting into more than one category. Three main foci in the students' experiences have emerged from the data, although the students described several ways of working with the questions:

1) A personal perspective- the student focuses on personal experience and uses it to explain things to the child,

2) A psychological perspective - the student pays attention to the maturity of the child in order to find appropriate methods for explaining and sorting things out for the child,

3) An educational meeting- a meeting between the child and the student, where she or he confirms and adopts the child's perspective.

TABLE 1: Overview of the student teachers' conceptions of how to deal with children's life questions.

1. A personal perspective

No point of view

Avoid situation

Convey

Use diversity

Give alternatives

Concrete explanation

To comfort - protect

2. A psychological perspective

Let the child talk

Find out the child's ideas

3. An educational meeting

Confirm the child's

perspective

To unfold the child's

thoughts

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The po in t of depa r tu r e for work ing wi th ch i ld ren ' s life ques t ions is ou t s ide the child. The s tuden t focuses on his or her own, socie ty ' s or the pa ren t s ' po in t of v iew, and the child becomes an object to which the adu l t conveys the ' r ight ' knowledge . With in this ca tegory there are di f ferent aspects of s t ra tegies for how to work wi th ch i ld ren ' s life quest ions: 'No po in t of view' ; 'Avoid ' ; 'Convey ' ; 'Give a l ternat ives ' ; 'Concrete explana- t ions ' and 'To comfor t - protect ' .

No point of view This s t ra tegy is charac te r i sed by hav ing no ideas of how to work wi th ch i ld ren ' s life quest ions. The s tuden t has not thought of the ques t ions before, ne i ther in re la t ion to preschool ch i ld ren nor to the profess ion.

Researcher: "And how w o u l d you descr ibe the w a y you in tend to work?" Student : "That ' s a diff icult question.. . I 've never thought about it ... have never ref lected on it at all. I d o n ' t know, actual ly ."

Avoid situation Ques t ions are not acknowledged . The s tuden t does not wan t to inf luence the ch i ld ' s th inking, so it is not poss ib le to work with these quest ions. It may also be a ques t ion of not be ing in teres ted in the area. The s tuden t has a pass ive a t t i tude to the quest ions or de l ibe ra te ly t r ies to avo id them.

... Usua l ly I s tay pass ive and I don ' t talk so much but ... I d o n ' t in tend to start any project on the Bible ... because I don ' t be l ieve in it. A n d at Chr is tmas, I w o n ' t ta lk about Jesus because I d o n ' t th ink i t ' s pa r t i cu la r ly interest ing. . .

Convey The s tuden t s tar ts from her own exper iences of life. She conveys her knowledge and exper ience to the child. One reason for this is a c laim to give chi ldren answers . This is her respons ib i l i ty as a teacher. Ano the r reason is a c la im to know the answers . The chi ld mus t not be confused by different explanat ions .

I d o n ' t th ink you can do much more than say wha t you be l ieve yourself .

Give alternatives The focus here is to convey many different ways of re la t ing to life quest ions. To be able to make choices of their own, ch i ld ren mus t be p resen ted dif ferent exper iences of life. There is no r ight or w r o n g and every exper ience mus t be va lued alike.

I d o n ' t wan t to inf luence the child, but I wan t to .... or if she ha ppe ns to have an exper ience a l ready , she shou ld st ick to it. But they shou ld know that there are other ways . They s h o u l d n ' t th ink that there ' s only one w a y that everyone be l ieves in. A n d that this w a y is the only r ight way.

Concrete explanation In this s t ra tegy the teacher ' s me thod is to expla in and sort out the ch i ld ' s quest ions in concrete terms. Life ques t ions do have na tura l or poss ib le explanat ions . The teacher takes a s tand based on her knowledge of ch i ld ren ' s d e v e l o p m e n t and matur i ty .

Well , I d o n ' t know what. . . I w o u l d t ry to look at it as rea l is t ica l ly as poss ib le ... t ry to expla in that one can somet imes be ill ... so that you m a y die, or that you are o ld ... Then I th ink I have someth ing to ho ld on to. I have a chance to expla in someth ing in a more concrete way.

To comfort - protect This s t ra tegy concerns life ques t ions as emot iona l exper iences . The s tudent wants to comfort and protect the child. Her methods aim to prevent chi ldren from being puzz led

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or worried. She wants both to sort things out for the child and to give hope and security. Here we find a combinat ion of conveying knowledge of the area, protecting and making things easier for the child in an emotional sense.

Well, it 's a good thing if they don ' t have to keep worry ing about this (life questions). They 'd probably find that hard.


The main focus of this strategy is the psychological experiences of the child. The child 's questions are the teacher 's point of depar ture for discovering appropriate methods, but the teacher 's role is still to sort out and explain, in order to help the child. The method varies from a more passive approach, i.e. just letting the child talk about it 's thoughts, to a more active one, i.e. f inding out what the questions stand for and helping the child work with the questions in several ways. The three strategies are: 'Let the child talk'; 'Find out the child 's idea' and 'Work in many ways '

Let the child talk The student emphasises the importance of the conversat ion in the work with life questions. To let children talk about the t roublesome question makes the question dissolve. To be able to help the child in this way it is necessary to gain the child 's confidence so that she or he dares to open up and talk about what is on her or his mind.

You would probably like to have such a relationship with the children that you can sit both in a group or with each individual and talk and ask questions, and in that way create such trust that they want to open up to you.

Find out the child's idea Here we find a strategy that stresses the importance of listening and finding out what the child really wants to know. The answers vary according to the child 's experience of life questions. By passing the question back to the child the s tudent will be able to find out what the question stands for and the answers she should give.

Maybe ask what they think themselves and then go on from there. It 's not certain, of course, that every child wants the same answer.

Use diversity In this strategy the student relates more actively to chi ldren 's questions about life. She or he starts with the child 's needs and the child 's answers. Children need to work both with their own thoughts and with their unders tanding of the nature of things. Children need to express their ponder ing over life in different ways, both verbally and bodily. Children seek concrete explanations.

If you talk you only evoke thoughts, to express them you need to do something about them as well.

3. A n educational meeting

Here we find the s tudent focusing mainly on a mutual meeting where the point of departure is the child 's perspective, but even so she or he goes actively into dialogue with the child. The answers or the 'right ' answers are not of critical importance, and the s tudent does not feel obliged to explain or convey anything to the child. Two strategies for this meeting with the child emerge. In the first the student sees as her role to confirm the child 's perspective and create a mutual dialogue. The other goes further, by both confirming and helping the child to create a new and wider understanding. The categories are 'To confirm the child' and 'To unfold the child 's thoughts ' .

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15

To confirm the child's perspective This experience is psychological in nature; the child's identity is important. The student uses his or her knowledge and experience to confirm the child's way of relating to life questions. The ways of doing this vary. Dialogues, drama, stories and creative activities all serve the aim to confirm the children's thoughts.

It is the child that is most important... Perhaps it's not so important to the child what I think, but what the child itself thinks.

To unfold the child's thoughts The student describes the meeting with children's questions of life as mutual. The aim is to confirm the child's thoughts, but the meeting also moves towards a new understanding. Questions about life are not only the point of departure in a learning process but also its goal, where the student's focus is the child's experience, reflections and understanding.

Well it's important, it's very important to know why you are alive and to be able to reflect, express one's thoughts and work out why you believe what you believe, and then it's important to develop children's thoughts so they really can work things out and know that they think this.

Quantitative description

As shown in Figure 1, the main categories describe the development in the students' experiences of their methods for dealing with preschool children's questions about life. This development starts from an experience where the students focus on their own perspective and extend to a meeting where the child and the adult together form the point of departure for the child's life questions. The same person may express more than one experience.

Conceptions % 7o m A personal perspective

! a A psychological perspective

30406°50 ~! ~ m An educat ional meet ing

10

0 p t .... Interview 1 Interview 2

m /

Interview 3

FIGURE 1: Frequencies of the student teachers' various experiences of how to deal with children's questions. The frequencies only illustrate the main categories

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In Figure I we can see how students in the intervention study change from the first to the second interview. We can also compare their changes with the feature of the comparison group's view of how they would like to work with children's life questions. We will follow the change more in details in Table 2.

TABLE 2: Students' experiences of how to work with children's life questions in preschool, shown as a percentage of the total number of experiences. All categories

are represented here. The figures in parenthesis represent the numbers of experiences in each category.


No point of view

Avoid situations

Convey

Give alternatives

Concrete explanation

To comfort - project

Intervention group Comparison group

Interview 1 Interview 2

% % %

2

17

16

16

8

0

0

(8) (12)

(1)

0

4 (2)

0

19 (9)

30 (14)

9 (4)

4 (2)

SUM 59 (21) 66 (31)


Let the child talk

Find out the child's idea

Use diversity

0

(16)

(18)

6

19

10

9 (4) 19 (9)

2 (1) SUM 35 (34) 30 (14)

(2) (19) 9 (17) 14 (17) 2

(9) (66) 26

(7) (21) 19 (11) 21 (39) 40

(3) 20

(3) 14

(6) 34

3. An educational meet ing

To confirm the child's

perspective

(17)

(12)

(29)

To unfold the child's

thoughts

SUM

2 (1)

2 (1)

4 (2)

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17

In Table 2 we can follow a change in experiences among the students in the project group. At their second interview they have moved from 'A personal perspective' towards 'A psychological perspective' and 'An educational meeting'. They now seem to focus on the child's experiences and perspective. We also find that many of the experiences relate life questions to children's learning. Some of the categories do not appear at all at the second interview. We believe that this confirms the students' change of view. The students' perspective of children's questions about life is no longer associated with difficulties. They do not think that the child need to be protected against pondering (see the category 'To comfort - protect') or to get rid of the questions by talking (see the category 'Let the child talk'). It seems that the students have changed their way of conceiving children's pondering on life questions from being a burden to a way to develop the children's understanding of the world around them. The category 'Concrete explanation' related to maturity has been considerably reduced. This could be interpreted as a result of a new insight into children's capacity to reflect upon their questions about life.

D i s c u s s i o n

The aim of the intervention study was to develop students' competence in working with preschool children's questions about life. We wanted to change the way students experienced what these quest ions were all about as well as to present a phenomenographically oriented pedagogy for how this might be achieved. But before we talk about the aims in relation to the outcome of the project let us focus on the relationship between the empirical phase and the intervention phase.

First of all both phases are founded upon the same view of knowledge formation. This means that it is the same epistemological base for the individual student as for the researcher. From this follows that, as a researcher, it is of vital importance to find out students' ways of experiencing or making sense of a phenomenon. As a researcher in the intervention study, it is of the same importance to build up the work based on the students' understanding and ways of experiencing a phenomenon. Moreover, it is important to help students discover children's ways of making sense of or experiencing a subject and use this as a basis for teaching. To summarise: the researcher has to take the students' perspective as well as the student has to take the child's perspective in order to develop students' or children's learning (Pramling, 1996). Still there is a clear difference between the two phases of this study. The research is based on pre- and post interviews, while the intervention study is based on an interaction between the researchers and the students.

At one level it could be said that it is hard to claim an absolute reason for the students' development, as the intervention is only a small part of a total education programme. The intervention has taken place over time, and of course, students are likely to change, mature and enhance their knowledge base during this time whether they have taken part in a study or not.

However, we found the intervention successful even though the pedagogy we used could have been developed more. The students' way of thinking about the phenomenon children's questions about life has changed qualitatively (Marton & Booth, 1997). During the intervention children's life questions became visible to the students, and they adopted the area as an important part of the preschool syllabus. The students have developed an active attitude well as a capacity to take the child's perspective. The students' concern now is to meet with the child and it's questions, to help the child to relate to earlier thoughts as well as to find new ways of thinking (Pestalozzi, 1819). They have penetrated the area more deeply, and the character of the child's questions has become apparent to them. One could say that the how and what aspects of learning has developed in the students' thinking (Marton & Booth, 1997). Whether the students

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integrate this into a general viewpoint that will persist in their future work in preschool is an important question but beyond the scope of this project.

Providing alternatives

At the beginning of the intervention study many students from both groups wanted to present the children with all possible ideas about the area to help them to make a choice. But this is not the way socialisation takes place. Instead research tells us that children do not choose their view of life, but develop an experience of life according to their values and experiences in their life world (Valsiner, 1989). This also seems to be connected with pluralism and a fear of influencing children. All opinions are valued equally.

After the intervention this attitude is not so prominent. The child's thoughts are of more importance, and the students do not feel obliged to present all alternatives. However, in relation to children from different cultures the students appear to interpret the culture knowledge provided to children as one-sided. The students seem to feel obliged to compensate these children for their 'misfortune' and help them to know about alternative ideas.

What about the students' attitude towards learning; could we say this has changed? At the beginning of the project the students" main focus is to explain. The students become the ones who give or mediate knowledge to the child. After the project the students attach far less importance to their role as a giver of knowledge and emphasis the importance of confirming the child's thoughts. This seems to be a change in their attitude towards learning, although they might not express this change in terms of children's learning or concisely realise that change.

Metacognition and learning

When the students talk about learning moments which had become important to them during the project they mention different things. Some students point at learning as a process, where the learning moments are not possible to distinguish clearly from each other. These students recognise their learning in terms of a new way of thinking about the area. Marton and Booth (1997) regard learning as a new way of experiencing the surrounding world. Other students relate their learning to a discovery. They have detected the area, children's questions about life, and something new within themselves. One example of this is described by a student as a situation in class where she suddenly discovers a change within herself. Something changed during the time we sat there... This has been described as qualitative changes of learning (See Piaget, 1926; Marton & Booth, 1997; Pramling, 1996). What we find notably is that most of the students point out the importance of metacognition (Pramling, 1987) as a source of learning. They refer to important learning situations as opportunities when they had to reflect upon their own thinking, express and thereby make their standpoint visible to each other. In addition other students hold their experiences of practice in preschool as important for their learning. All these examples seem to strengthen a connection between metacognition and learning processes (Marton & Booth 1997; Pramling, 1987, 1988, 1996).

Phenomenographically oriented pedagogy as a tool

Did our phenomenographically oriented pedagogy help the students to find a tool for meeting children's questions of life in preschool? The answer to this question is both yes and no. Initially our students as well the comparison group expressed difficulty in

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working with preschool children's life questions in preschool. After the intervention the students emphasise the importance of being aware of and of using children's ways of experiencing, of confirming their viewpoint and supporting them in their work with life questions. As one student said:

"One important part of my role as a teacher is to have the courage to meet the child and myself, to be sensitive ... to let children formulate their lives."

The dialogue seems to be a salient feature, but the students now describe many creative methods, as myths, stories, drama, painting etc., for working with the questions.

How is this to be interpreted? In their emphasis on children's experiences, we recognise the phenomenographic approach where the child's life-world is of importance (Marton, 1992; Marton & Booth 1997; Bengtsson, 1993). We can also find parallels to the talks and discussions within the intervention. These aimed to make students express and reflect their ideas, to make the variation in the experiences visible and to make students shift between their own perspective and the child's, and further to methods. For some students the talk as a method is probably spontaneous. For others it represents a dialogue or a discussion that aims to make children reflect upon, express and extend their ideas about life.

What about the students' proposal that children should raise the questions? In the phenomenographically oriented pedagogy, the teacher is clear about what she wants the children to develop and also has strategies for doing this. This teacher would build on children's ways of experiencing but would not wait for the questions to come.

Our conclusion from this is that instead of acquiring one tool for working with the questions, it could be said that the students have acquired several. They now acknowledge the importance of dealing with life questions in preschool and have built up a readiness to meet children's questions about life. A relevant question also is to ask whether the researchers in the intervention phase made the phenomenographically oriented approach sufficiently visible?

Implications for education

The Swedish Higher Education Ordinance (1993) decrees that training should help preschool teacher trainees to develop a capacity for working with issues such as preschool children's questions about life. The interviews showed that students were initially poorly prepared for these questions, but after the application of the intervention phase they improved significantly. This tells us both that the area is neglected in teacher training and that a pedagogy like the one described here is essential. Does it mean that this area is not valued as important within education? Is it possible that methods used in education fail to throw light on the questions? Do educators, like the students, find the questions difficult and therefore avoid this area?

These are important questions to raise within education. Further questions arise: What type of competence should teacher training offer? What type of competence does the teacher need? What strategies are of importance? Our conclusion is that education of preschool teachers should help students to achieve a pedagogy where the meeting with the child aims to confirm and unfold the child's thoughts and pondering about life. This will be done by helping students to:

- find the questions within themselves and the children - reflect upon the "own" with reference to the area

What do I need to know? What is my own view of life? How do I relate to children?

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We would like to emphasise that what we have shown here as a phenomenographic pedagogy is not 'one method', it is a pedagogical approach, a general attitude towards learning that can be used in any learning context. The strategies for achieving this are manifold, but some stand out as more important. Reflection has been a vital tool in the project. The aim was to help students to reach an awareness of their own attitudes, to enable them to reach a new understanding. Student's ways of experiencing, their ideas and the collective learning are essential. When a diversity of different ways of thinking appears to students, their taken-for-granted way of thinking is challenged, and by that there will be an opportunity to change perspective - to learn. Activities that force students to reflect upon values seem to be challenging learning situations. The point is that these activities were manifold, creative and inspiring to our students and could also be useful in their work with children's life questions in preschool.

The teacher in education needs a competence to create situations where reflection becomes possible and emerges. Teachers need to reflect upon their own stand- points and motives but also to gain further knowledge of the area, children's life questions. This can be seen as a movement between one's own reflections and the work with the students. In this process we can recognise the student's meeting with the child. The teacher of pedagogy should, of course, aim to create a mutual, confirmative and unfolding meeting between him or herself and the student. Related to students in teacher education, this seems to be an excellent process where you shift between focusing on the child and reflecting upon yourself in relation to the child.

NOTES

I11 We use the word student as a replacement for student teacher. Teacher represents the educators in preschool.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The project has been carried out with financial support from the Council for the Renewal of Undergraduate Education.

Correspondence about this paper should be addressed to:

I. Pramling Samuelsson, E. Johansson, B. Davidsson & B. Fors G6teborg University

Department of Education Box 300

SE-405 30 G6teborg Sweden

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Documents

Student teachers' and preschool children's questions about life — A phenomenographic approach to learning