Factors influencing pre-service preschool teachers’ engineering thinking: model development and test

Engineering thinking enhances real-world learning; it emphasises system thinking, problem finding and creative problem solving as well as visualising, improving, and adapting products and processes. Several studies have investigated how pre-service preschool teachers acquire their knowledge of technology and engineering; however, a clear presentation of the factors that affect their engineering thinking is still lacking. Pre-service preschool teachers’ attitudes to technology, their perceptions of and experiences with their own engagement in technology and engineering activities, and their creative potential could contribute to their engineering thinking. To address these gaps, we used data from an empirical study of 154 early childhood pre-service teachers from two Middle European universities in Slovenia and Poland. A conceptual model was hypothesized, tested, and supported by the results using confirmatory factor analysis with structural equation modelling. Our findings revealed significant associations among pre-service teachers’ attitude towards technology, perceptions, and behaviour as well as on the role of their experience in a technology and engineering course in the relationship between attitudes toward technology and behavioural practice. Our results offer important implications about how to prepare pre-service teachers for innovative performance towards enhancing technological knowledge and skills.