Children’s Conceptions of Learning in Preschool

Abstract

To discover whether or how children’s awareness of their own learning is developed during the year in preschool, the children were interviewed on two occasions. The first one already took place within one or two weeks of starting the autumn term, when the children were assumed to have settled into the routines, and the other took place in the last week of the spring term. The main questions on both occasions were “Tell me about something you have learnt in preschool” and, referring to the child’s example, “How did you go about learning that?” On the first occasion children were also asked “Do you think you are going to learn something in preschool. If so, what?”