Characterization of the beliefs of preschool teachers about sciences

This work is part of a larger piece of research (FONDECYT 11100402), and its aim is to determine and characterize the beliefs that preschool teachers have about science; the way they are teaching and learning it, and also the influence of these beliefs on the implementation of a government program (Your Competencies in Science, from now on, TCC). This work, under the aforementioned framework and from a mixed methodological approach, is intended to get to know the belief's systems about science, teaching and learning of the preschool teachers participating in Valparaiso Region (n = 61) to lately go deeper into a stratified and representative sample of the teachers (n = 9) that are working on the implementation of the TCC program. It is expected that the results are an incentive and a reference for more work at this level to be conducted and that they would help to understand how preschool teachers act regarding science. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.