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This chapter investigates the role of focus group discussions in enhancing preschool teachers' capacity to recognise and foster mathematical learning within children's play, focusing on educational contexts in Italy and Sweden. Grounded in a theoretical framework that integrates Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) with Bishop's six mathematical activities – counting, locating, measuring, designing, explaining, and playing – the study explores the potential of these dialogues to deepen educators' awareness of mathematical content during child-initiated play. The qualitative research methodology involved two focus group sessions. The first session utilised a video scenario to facilitate discussions among six experienced preschool teachers (three from each country) about identifying and interpreting mathematical dimensions in children's play. The second session centred on examples drawn from the educators' own practices, allowing them to reflect on how these activities align with Bishop's model. The findings reveal that while teachers are proficient at noticing and interpreting various mathematical activities within play, such as designing and explaining, they face challenges in developing strategies for enhancing these interactions. Teachers demonstrated an ability to recognise opportunities for mathematical learning but exhibited difficulty in actively integrating this awareness into their teaching practices without disrupting the natural flow of play. This study highlights the importance of adult participation in supporting children's mathematical exploration through reflective practice and collaborative discussion. The results suggest that focus group discussions can serve as a valuable platform for professional development, offering educators structured opportunities to refine their ability to recognise and expand upon the mathematical content inherent in everyday activities. By bridging theory and practice, this approach has the potential to enhance teaching methodologies and enrich children's learning experiences. Overall, the chapter underscores the significance of ongoing professional dialogue and reflection in fostering a deeper understanding of early childhood mathematics education, advocating for structured focus group discussions as an effective tool for teacher training and educational advancement.

This presentation concerns an ongoing project about mathematical communication in preschool. The project aims to understand how talk moves (Kazemi & Hintz, 2014), and different types of questions (Cunningham, 1987; Kilhamn & Liljekvist, 2018) can be used in the teaching of mathematics.  This presentation will focus on questions and how these can be used to promote children’s conceptual understanding and collective (Sumpter & Hedefalk, 2015) and creative mathematical reasoning (Lithner, 2008) in a preschool setting. The ability to reason mathematically has been shown to predict later mathematical performance in school (Nunes et al. 2012), and conceptual understanding is needed to be able to reason and communicate about and in mathematics. Children already reason at preschool age, but the development of mathematical reasoning requires teaching from someone who asks questions and helps children make progress (see e.g. Hedefalk et al., 2024).

The four types of questions used in the project are: factual questions, focusing questions, conceptual questions, and evaluative questions (Cunningham, 1987; Kilhamn & Liljekvist, 2018). Factual questions are asked by the preschool teacher when they already know the answer. This type of closed question can be used to introduce a new concept or clarify a concept. For example: “What is this shape called?”, “What is the name of...?” Focusing questions direct the children's attention to something specific. This type of question can be used to find out the child's understanding of a concept. For example: “Can you see a figure that has the same shape?”—while pointing to a circle. Conceptual questions are used by preschool teachers to encourage children to suggest strategies and describe their thinking and reasoning. These questions help move the children's thoughts forward and allow them to verbalise their experiences or solutions. For example: “Could you do it in another way?”, “What happens if…?” Evaluative questions are used to encourage children to justify and argue, to provide evidence for different thoughts and claims. For example: “How come?”, “How do you know that?” The different types of questions have been discussed in research on early childhood mathematics education. However, it appears that preschool teachers primarily use the first two types of questions, that is, closed questions that are more intended to introduce a new concept or direct the children's attention to something than to challenge ideas or develop reasoning (e.g. Björklund & Palmér, 2024; Carlsen, 2013). It can therefore be assumed that asking open-ended questions, such as conceptual and evaluative questions, is something preschool teachers need to practice.

Therefore, one aim of this project is to identify the potential uses of each question type, and to explore and examine how conceptual and evaluative questions can be formulated in relation to specific mathematical domains in preschool. The research question is: 1) How can different types of questions be used as tools to develop children’s mathematical reasoning and understanding of mathematical concepts?

This newly started project is conducted as action research in collaboration with teams of preschool educators from one Swedish preschool. Through multiple cycles of planning (including input from researchers and practising different questions), action, observation, and reflection, we aim to jointly identify effective questions in preschool mathematics. The “action” refers to teaching designed to develop children’s conceptual understanding and mathematical reasoning.

The presentation will reveal preliminary findings, discuss methodological issues and the planned way forward. 

ReferencesBjörklund, C., & Palmér, H. (2024). The challenges of mathematizing in Swedish early childhood education. Journal of Early Childhood Education Research, 13(2), 167-186. 

Carlsen, M. (2013). Engaging with mathematics in the kindergarten. Orchestrating a fairy tale through questioning and use of tools. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 21(4), 502–513. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2013.845439  

Cunningham. R, (1987). What kind of question is that? In W. Wilen (Ed.) Questions, Questioning Techniques, and Effective Teaching, (s. 67-93). National Education Association of the United States. 

Hedefalk, M., Sumpter, L., & Eriksson, H. (2024). Matematiska och etiska resonemang i förskolan: didaktisk modellering som intervention. Forskning om undervisning och lärande, 12(2), 68-84. 

Kazemi, E. & Hintz, A. (2014). Intentional talk: How to structure and lead productive mathematical discussions. Stenhouse Publishers. 

Kilhamn, C. & Liljekvist, Y. (2018). Interaktion i matematikklassrummet. In O. Helenius (Ed), Att bli lärare i matematik. Liber. 

Lithner, J. (2008). A research framework for creative and imitative reasoning. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 67(3), 255–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-007-9104-2 

Nunes, T., Bryant, P., Barros, R., & Sylva, K. (2012). The relative importance of two different mathematical abilities to mathematical achievement. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(1), 136–156. 

Sumpter, L., & Hedefalk, M. (2015). Preschool children's collective mathematical reasoning during free outdoor play. The Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 39, 1-10. 

This study examines how preschool teachers reflect on their role in challenging children's mathematical thinking in play. The study was conducted with participants in Italy and Sweden, and data were collected through focus group discussions. We use Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and the concept of didactic sensitivity to understand how preschool teachers describe their support of mathematical thinking in children's play and how they interact in play to promote mathematics learning. The findings show that teachers from both focus groups notice, interpret, and improve mathematical content in children's play. They outline their role in supporting mathematisation during play situations, for instance, by describing mathematical concepts and providing the children with resources. However, the findings show differences and tensions in how teachers perceive their role in children's play, with Italian teachers highlighting the importance of children's autonomy and Swedish teachers stressing the importance of being facilitators.

Previous research shows that many prospective and early childhood teachers have low self-confidence and negative attitudes towards mathematics (Hollingsworth & Knight McKenna, 2018; Linder & Simpson, 2018; Panero et al., 2023). These negative attitudes influence their teaching of mathematics and thus what children are offered to learn (Geist, 2015; Knaus, 2017; Linder & Simpson, 2018). Offering a sustainable and equitable mathematics education to all preschool children thus means all preschool teachers need to see mathematics as something they have the competence to teach, for which positive attitudes are important.  

The aim of this study is to investigate attitudes towards mathematics among prospective preschool teachers who have just started their teacher education. The results will have relevance for preschool teacher education and give implications for what to consider when working to promote prospective preschool teachers’ attitudes toward mathematics. 

We use the concept of attitude and adopt a multidimensional definition (Wen & Dube, 2022) where cognitive as well as affective and behavioral components are included. 

The study employs a mixed methods design. We used a short form of Tapia and Marsh's (2004) Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) questionnaire, developed and tested by Lim and Chapman (2013), and reflective written texts. 34 students participated in the study. 

Preliminary results from the qualitative data show that prospective preschool teachers have negative experiences of mathematics which affect how they view mathematics and how they feel about the subject. Concerning the cognitive dimension they describe mathematics in words like “it is difficult”, “something I struggle with” and “something we need to know for everyday life”.  About the affective dimension, the participants express no joy for the subject, however, their negative experiences seem to have motivated them to give preschool children better opportunities to learn and enjoy mathematics. We expect further analyses of the reflective texts to provide results concerning the behavioral dimension of attitudes. Also, the questionnaire remains to be analysed.  

The most common method for measuring attitudes is questionnaires that are analysed quantitatively (Wen & Dube, 2022). In recent years, however, several researchers have called for more qualitative methods (e.g. Di Martino & Zan, 2011; Kaasila et al.,2012). To date, there are few studies, especially in the Nordic context, that focus on prospective early childhood teachers’ attitudes toward mathematics with qualitative methods. Thus, our mixed methods approach aims to meet this call.

Developing sustainable early childhood education (ECE) demands competent staff. For this, regular professional development (PD) is significant. This study aims to problematise choices about scientific basis for PD-programs for ECE teachers. A concept for PD that has drawn attention the last years is massive open online courses (MOOC). Although researched and found promising for PD (e.g Herranen et al. 2021), the concept is not entirely compatible with other research on effective PD (Desimone, 2009). We draw on Desimone’s (2009) program theory for effective PD which include five core features: content focus, coherence, active learning, duration and collective participation. This will be discussed in relation to the results and problematised in relation to MOOC. This ongoing study is conducted within a qualitative research paradigm. Through a qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) of the 14 participants' written and oral evaluations of a PD-program designed with inspiration from the MOOC-concept, we study their perceptions of the form of the PD-program. In line with the guidelines of the Swedish research council (2017) consent was collected after the participants had been informed in writing about the aim of the research, valuntary participation and confidential treatment of personal data. Early results show the participants even before starting the PD-program recognized the lack of one core feature - collective participation - as they themselves organized meetings to discuss the course content. The results will contribute knowledge about whether the MOOC inspired PD-program is perceived to provide an effective learning environment for early childhood teachers.

This study examines five preschool teachers' narratives about using the outdoor environment as a pedagogical resource for children's play, learning and experiences in Swedish preschools. Participants were asked to reflect on both opportunities and challenges in outdoor play and learning. The present study responds to the need for further research on how the outdoor environment is used in daily pedagogical practice through the lens of preschool teachers' own descriptions. The study is built on interpretive qualitative research, a form of narrative inquiry that uses concepts such as place and didactic sensitivity in the analysis. The findings show how the participants highlight many opportunities for children to engage in play and learning activities in the outdoor environment. The importance of educators' involvement and pedagogical commitment is also emphasised. However, constraints related to lack of variation, access, and teacher commitment are clearly identified as hindering the use of the outdoor environment as a pedagogical resource.

Tidigare forskning visar att blivande och verksamma förskollärare ofta har negativa attityder och lågt självförtroende i matematik. Dessa attityder påverkar deras undervisning och barns möjligheter att lära sig. Förskollärarutbildningen behöver adressera studenternas attityder och främja positiva attityder gentemot matematik. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka blivande förskollärares attityder mot matematik, hur dessa förändras under utbildningen och vilka faktorer i utbildningen som påverkar förändringarna. Studenter i tre stadier av programmet deltar – i termin 1, termin 3 och termin 5. En tvådimensionell definition av attityd anammas och en kortversion av Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) används tillsammans med öppna frågor och intervjuer. Resultaten visar att studenternas attityder är negativa i den affektiva komponenten men neutrala till positiva i den kognitiva komponenten. De flesta studenterna i termin 5 upplever en positiv förändring i attityd under utbildningen på grund av positiva och tillgängliga lärare, ökad kunskap om matematik i förskolan samt utvecklad ämneskunskap vilket de får ”kvitto” på när de klarat ämnestentamen

Previous research shows that many prospective and early childhood teachers have negative attitudes and low self-confidence in mathematics. These negative attitudes affect their teaching and children’s opportunities to learn mathematics. It is crucial that early childhood teacher education (ECTE) address students’ attitudes and work to promote positive attitudes towards mathematics. The aim of this study is to investigate prospective teachers’ attitudes towards mathematics, whether and how their attitudes change during ECTE and what might cause the changes. Students in three stages of the program participate – in semester 1, semester 3 and semester 5. A two-dimensional definition of attitude is adopted and a short version of the Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) is used together with open-ended questions and interviews. The results show that the students’ attitudes are negative within the affective component and neutral to positive within the cognitive component. Most of the students in semester 5 experience a positive change in attitude during education due to positive and accessible teachers, increased knowledge of what mathematics in preschool can be and developed subject knowledge.

Researchers emphasise the importance for early childhood teacher education (ECTE) to promote positive attitudes towardsmathematics (Hollingsworth & Knight McKennas, 2018). The aim of this study is to investigate preservice teachers' attitudes totowards mathematics, whether and how attitudes change during ECTE and what might cause the changes. Previous research showsthat many preservice and early childhood teachers have low self-confidence and negative attitudes towards mathematics (Gresham& Burleigh, 2019; Hollingsworth & Knight McKenna, 2018; Linder & Simpson, 2018; Palmer, 2010). These negative attitudesinfluence their teaching of mathematics, which in turn affects children’s possibilities to learn (Geist, 2015; Knaus, 2017; Linder &Simpson; 2018; Youmans et al., 2018). We use the concept of attitude and adopt a multidimensional definition, where cognitive aswell as affective and behavioral components are included (Wen & Dube, 2022). We will use a short form of Tapia and Marsh's (2004)Attitudes Towards Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) questionnaire, developed and tested by Lim and Chapman (2013), together withcomplementing open questions. Ethical considerations are made according to the guidelines of the Swedish Research Council (2017).Based on the results, we will describe preservice teachers' attitudes towards mathematics during different parts of their education,as well as what influences these and how ECTE can contribute to promoting positive attitudes. The study can provide knowledgeabout how ECTE can support the development of positive attitudes towards mathematics, with the ultimate aim to enable earlychildhood education teachers to teach mathematics using children’s curiosity and interest.

The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge about how teaching in preschool can be understood in relation to how teaching is described by preschool teachers. The following research questions were posed:How do preschool teachers describe teaching and its meaning in preschool? and What didactic questions appear in preschool teachers’ descriptions of teaching in preschool? The empirical data consist of reflective texts that were analysed through content analysis with the help of Bernstein’s concepts: classification and framing, and visible and invisible pedagogy. The results show that the preschool teachers in the study perceived the introduction of the concept of teaching in preschool as an opportunity, which allowed them to become more aware of their actions in different learning situations. That the preschool teachers described teaching taking place through play and in everyday situations based on children's interests and needs hints at an organization with invisible pedagogy, weak classification and weak framing. Strong classification and strong framing, on the other hand, became manifest when the preschool teachers described that they plan what they do with the children and use materials, organize children’s groups and design environments to promote children’s learning. Furthermore, the preschool teachers focused mainly on the didactic questions of how and why, while the what-question received less attention.