The relationship between teachers' pedagogical content knowledge about electrostatics and learners' performance

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about electrostatics and learners' performance in the topic. Two in-service and two pre-service physical science teachers, together with their learners, agreed to participate in the study. The PCK of the teachers was viewed as two manifestations; the personal PCK, which is static in nature and the enacted PCK, which is dynamic. A content representation (CoRe) tool and lesson plans were used to collect data that reflected the personal PCK of the teachers. The data for the enacted PCK was collected using classroom observations, and video stimulated recall (VSR) interviews. A topic specific PCK model was adopted as the framework for this study. The model asserts that specific content is transformed for instruction through five components, namely; learners' prior knowledge, curricular saliency, what is difficult to teach, representations including analogies, and conceptual teaching strategies. Guided by the model, I developed two rubrics to assess and quantify the quality of the teachers' personal and enacted PCK on a four-point scale. Learners, on the other hand, wrote a test developed specifically for this study which explored their performance in the fundamental concepts chosen for this study. The performance of the learners was then related to the personal and the enacted PCK of the teachers separately. The results revealed that the personal and the enacted PCK of the teachers, as well as the performance of the learners, varied across fundamental concepts of electrostatics. The variations in the personal and enacted PCK provided empirical evidence that supports the notion that PCK has a concept specific nature. The results also showed that the performance of the learners was better related to the enacted PCK of the teachers compared to the personal PCK. These results imply that it is important to make teaching practice the centre of pre-service teacher education given the direct impact of enacted PCK on learning. Furthermore, exploring PCK at concept level reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the concepts. As such, pre-service teacher education and in-service teacher professional development may be tailored in a manner that addresses the concepts that require intervention.