Early Childhood Teachers' Knowledge and Self-efficacy for Evaluating Solutions to Repeating Pattern Tasks

This study examines three aspects of early childhood teachers’ patterning knowledge: identifying features, errors and appropriate continuations of repeating patterns. Fifty-one practicing early childhood teachers’ self-efficacy is investigated in relation to performance on patterning tasks. Results indicated that teachers held high self-efficacy beliefs about solving patterning tasks correctly. Regarding performance, teachers were able to identify repeating patterns and errors in those patterns. However, when evaluating ways in which a repeating pattern may be continued, teachers found it more difficult to choose correct continuations for patterns that did not end with a complete unit of repeat than for those patterns that did. They tended to only choose continuations which would end the pattern with a complete unit of repeat. These results are discussed in light of findings from related previous studies.