Moving toward a More Robust Research Agenda: A Response to Hyson et al.

“Quality Improvement in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Faculty Perspectives and Recommendations for the Future” is an important foray into a much-needed area of research about the breadth, depth, and efficacy of early childhood teacher education. In essence, by focusing on how faculty view the context of their teaching and their own backgrounds, Hyson and colleagues point to areas for further investigation and underscore the need for revamping and investing in early childhood teacher preparation. For too long in the field, we have debated the optimum level of education and training for early childhood practitioners without looking at aspects of teacher preparation as the type and extent of coursework completed, mentoring, or fieldwork requirements prior to teaching, let alone the academic and professional preparation or the work environments of the teacher educators themselves. And yet we know, not only from this study but from the work of others, that early childhood teacher preparation in institutions of higher education is severely under-resourced, with heavier teaching loads and fewer full-time faculty compared to other departments within the same institutions. These studies also point to the lack of consistent academic preparation in early childhood development and pedagogy among faculty, not to mention the absence of direct and/or recent experience in working with children prior to kindergarten. This article should serve as the beginning of a more robust early childhood teacher education research agenda.