Influences on Turkish early childhood teachers’ science teaching practices and the science content covered in the early years Refika Olgan * Department of Elementary Education, School of Education, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey (Received 20 August 2014; accepted 17 September 2014) The first rationale of the study was not only to determine the topics taught in Turkish early childhood settings but also to define the frequency and time allocation for teaching science (n = 382). In the second phase, through semi- structured interview questions, the aim was to gain detailed information about Turkish early childhood teachers’ (n = 14) thoughts concerning the effectiveness of teacher education programmes, their level of confidence in teaching science, the obstacles they face, and the support from colleagues and school administrators. The findings revealed that Turkish early childhood teachers do not feel confident in teaching science and do not believe that they received adequate teacher training. In addition to these two reasons, the scarcity of resources and training opportunities can also be considered as contributory factors that may be helpful in explaining why the science content is too narrow and time allocation for science teaching is limited in Turkish early childhood settings. Keywords: science teaching; early childhood education; teachers’ confidence; teacher training; resources Introduction The importance of early science experiences for children is highlighted in several important documents (e.g. National Science Standards, National Research Council, National Association for the Education of Young Children) and it has been concluded that ‘the introduction of children to the essential experiences of science inquiry and explorations must begin at an early age’ (Seefeldt, Galper, & Jones, 2012, p. 4). Since children are ‘intellectual explorers’ (Lind, 1999) and ‘theory builders’ (Chaille & Britain, 2003), they naturally investigate their environment and early in their lives they start to develop an understanding of the world in which they live. In order to enhance their process of knowledge construction, young children need quality science experiences during their early childhood years to help them develop scientific thinking skills which they can then easily transfer their thinking skills to other academic domains (Trundle, 2010). Researchers have also emphasised that by providing inquiry- based science education and opportunities to engage in science, young children’s devel- opmental gains can be significantly improved (Gerde, Schachter, & Wasik, 2013; Howitt, Upson, & Lewis, 2011; Peterson & French, 2008). It is important for young children to learn about all areas of science and the topics should be presented within © 2014 Taylor & Francis *Email: rolgan@metu.edu.tr Early Child Development and Care, 2015 Vol. 185, No. 6, 926–942, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2014.967689