Structure of early childhood educators' domain-specific professional competencies and their effects on the quality of mathematical instructional situations in kindergarten and on children's increase in mathematical competencies.

学前教育最近获得了重要性，以促进早期特定领域的学习。这就对学习环境的质量提出了更高的要求，因此也对幼儿教育工作者的特定领域的专业能力提出了更高的要求。首先，研究结果表明，幼儿教育工作者的特定领域的能力和儿童的学习收益是联系在一起的。然而，很少有人知道的方式和条件，使幼儿教育工作者的特定领域的能力生效。我们设想的幼儿教育工作者的专业能力的差异的因果关系的影响进行分析。首先，本研究将以横断面研究探讨幼儿教育工作者在数学领域的专业能力与信念的结构。我们预计能力的特定领域组成部分（特定领域知识、反身能力和行动相关能力）可以分离。第二，采用纵向和实验设计，我们将通过干预措施，以确认预期的因果关系的影响，从教育工作者的能力的教学质量的方面（规划和学习支持），培养教育工作者的专业能力的不同组成部分。此外，本研究假设教育工作者的领域专业信念对儿童数学能力的发展有一定的影响，并期望教育工作者的领域专业信念对这种影响起到调节作用。为了避免混淆的能力和信念的变量取决于学前设置的结构背景，我们打算在德国和瑞士的研究，包括两国的研究，因为这两个国家不同的幼儿教育工作者的培训和幼儿教育的总体目标。

Preschool education has recently gained importance for fostering early domain-specific learning. This leads to higher demands on the quality of learning environments and hence also on the domain-specific professional competences of early childhood educators. First research results indicate that domain-specific competences of early childhood educators and children's learning gains are linked. However, little is known about the ways and conditions for bringing early childhood educators' domain-specific competences into effect. We envisage an analysis of the differentiated causal effects of early childhood educators' professional competences. First, we will investigate the structure of early childhood educators' domain-specific professional competences and beliefs in the domain of mathematics in a cross-sectional study. We expect that domain-specific components of competences (domain-specific knowledge, reflexive and action-related competences) can be separated. Second, employing a longitudinal and experimental design, we will foster different components of educators' professional competences through interventions in order to confirm the anticipated causal effects from the competences of educators on the facets of the quality of instruction (planning and learning support respectively). Furthermore we assume effects on the growth of children's mathematical competences and we expect the educators' domain-specific professional beliefs to play a moderating role on this effect. In order to avoid a confounded set of variables of competences and beliefs depending on the structural context of the preschool setting, we intend a bi-national study including research in Germany and Switzerland, as these two countries differ regarding the training of early childhood educators and the overall aims of early childhood education.