Presentation – CVC2026-611

Early childhood educators’ confidence and willingness to teach STEM: A systematic review with a focus on engineering

Rajy Xavier, Ikon Institute of Australia, Australia

Background: Children’s engagement with STEM in the early years is shaped by the confidence and readiness of the educators working alongside them. Despite broad recognition of STEM’s importance in early childhood education, a persistent gap exists between educators’ positive dispositions towards STEM and their capacity to enact STEM pedagogy, with engineering remaining the least understood and least embedded component in early childhood settings, both in Australia and globally.

Aim: This paper presents a systematic literature review examining early childhood educators’ confidence and willingness to teach STEM, with a specific focus on engineering – exploring why this gap exists, what sustains it, and what professional learning approaches show promise in expanding and enriching STEM-related learning opportunities for young children.

Method: This study is a systematic literature review and did not involve human participants; therefore, formal ethical approval was not required. Drawing on empirical research published since 2020, the review analyses key studies across Australian and international early childhood contexts, synthesising findings related to educator confidence, preservice preparation, and professional identity in relation to STEM and engineering pedagogy.

Results/findings: The review reveals a compounding cycle constraining children’s access to engineering experiences: inadequate preservice preparation, conflation of general inquiry with STEM-specific competency, and professional identity tensions that position STEM as belonging to formal schooling. MacDonald et al. (2021), O'Neill et al. (2023), and Wan et al. (2021) collectively highlight that engineering is the dimension of STEM educators feel least prepared and least confident to teach.

Conclusion: When educators lack confidence in STEM – particularly engineering – children’s learning activities are narrowed and opportunities for rich, integrated STEM engagement are lost from the earliest years. Addressing both the capability and dispositional dimensions of educator readiness is essential for ensuring young children have access to the full breadth of STEM learning experiences, on which their development and future participation in society depend.

Implications for children and families: When your child’s educators feel confident teaching STEM, your child gets more opportunities to explore, question, build, and problem-solve in ways that build lifelong curiosity and thinking skills — starting from their earliest years.

Implications for practitioners: Your confidence in STEM — especially engineering – directly shapes the learning experiences you make available to children. This review highlights targeted professional learning pathways that can strengthen both your knowledge and your sense of professional identity as a STEM educator.

Keywords: STEM, early childhood education, engineering, early engineering education

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: