Towards "female-friendly" science teaching: A preliminary study with kindergarten teachers

Females contribute half of our population, their underachievements in science areas are receiving a lot of concerns."Science education for women and girls" have emerged as a major issue in education over the last decade in the world (UNESCO, 1995). Kindergarten teachers are one of the most feminine group of persons. If they are going to learn Physics, what kinds of curricular design, teaching method, teacher's attitude and behavior are best for them ? This paper presents an action research study which try to explore the above questions. In this study, the subjects are the inservice kindergarten teachers in the Qualified Kindergarten Teacher Certificate course of HKIEd. The author herself has acted as a teacher, teaching two classes (ie. 60 ) of kindergarten teachers eight hours of Physcis."Female-friendly" elements are purposely introduced into the teaching and the effectiveness of it is evaluated mainly by questionnaires. Their responses are very positive. They feel that the eight hours lesson has increased their interests and their confidence in science learning, and some of them even believe that what they have learnt are useful to their jobs. Though this study is a preliminary one, it sheds light on future research in this area.