Science Literacy and Foundational Critical-Thinking Behaviors in Early Childhood: Kindergarten Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices

Tri Utami; Subar Junanto

doi:10.59329/gawi.v6i2.372

Authors

Tri Utami UIN Raden Mas Said Surakarta
Subar Junanto UIN Raden Mas Said Surakarta

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59329/gawi.v6i2.372

Keywords:

critical thinking, early childhood education, kindergarten teachers, science literacy

Abstract

Science literacy plays a crucial role in stimulating critical thinking skills in early childhood through various activities that provide children with opportunities to observe, explore, investigate, and explain phenomena encountered in daily life. This study describes kindergarten teachers’ perceptions and reported science-literacy practices, examines teacher-reported child behaviors that are consistent with foundational processes related to critical thinking, and identifies implementation barriers. A convergent mixed-methods design was used. The raw Google Forms export contained 111 submissions; screening by unique respondent identifier identified 15 repeat submissions, leaving 96 unique respondents. Among valid quantitative responses, all 96 teachers reported having introduced science activities; 77 of 96 (80.21%) rated science literacy at the highest importance category; and 80 of 96 (83.33%) reported science activities at least three times per month. Qualitative analysis showed that teachers commonly reported children’s enthusiasm and curiosity, questioning, attentive observation, willingness to try or repeat experiments, and simple explanations or predictions. These behaviors were interpreted as learning dispositions, science-process skills, and emerging reasoning behaviors rather than as direct evidence of validated critical-thinking performance. Barriers included limited tools and materials, time constraints, classroom-management demands, and uneven teacher knowledge and institutional support. Integration of the two data strands suggests that science activities are perceived as important and are implemented regularly, but the quality and depth of implementation vary according to available support.

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