Pre-service teachers' development of topic specific PCK in kinematics and transferability of PCK competence to a new physics topic
Date
2016-09-13
Authors
Akinyemi, Olutosin Solomon
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Abstract
There have been indications of inadequate content knowledge of South African physical
science teachers and poor pedagogical content knowledge in making the concepts accessible
to students. With this, the pre-service teachers are considered a part of the science education
foremost links to schools and young science learners. Empirically, it has been reported that
this unique teacher knowledge could be developed particularly in pre-service teachers in a
planning context and that the new technique of developing pre-service teachers’ PCK within
a topic helps in their good mastery of teaching concepts and thus making them specialists in
topics. The Topic Specific PCK (TSPCK) construct focuses on the transformation of the
understanding of content of a particular topic. This study investigated the extent to which
focus on kinematics improves pre-service teachers’ PCK in the topic and possible
transferability of the learnt pedagogical competence to a new physics topic – electric circuits.
Guiding this study were two research questions: What is the impact of the intervention on the
quality of pre-service teachers’ Topic Specific PCK in Kinematics? To what extent is the preservice
teachers’ learnt pedagogical transformation competence transferrable to their
planning of a new topic in physics topic – Electric circuits? This study used mixed methods
to investigate TSPCK in pre-service teachers. It was located in the methodology class of
Twenty-three (23) 4th year physical science majors. The study included an intervention
where the theoretical framework for TSPCK was used to introduce the construct in
Kinematics. The intervention explains each of the five components of Topic Specific PCK
using the knowledge concepts of Kinematics. Data were collected using three instruments:
an instrument measuring content knowledge in kinematics; an instrument measuring the
quality of Topic Specific PCK in kinematics administered as a set of pre/post intervention
tests; and an instrument measuring transferability of learnt competence in planning for
teaching a new topic electricity. The pre-service teachers’ written responses to the TSPCK
kinematics tool were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Both methods of analysis
revealed that the pre-service teachers improved in their quality of TSPCK in kinematics
following the intervention. It was also found out that the pre-service teachers’ improvement
in the quality of TSPCK in kinematics was as result of rigorous engagement with the TSPCK
components at varying degrees. Similarly, on the topic of transfer, electricity which was not
discussed during the intervention, TSPCK tool in electric circuits was administered to the
pre-service teachers and few records of their actual classroom teaching were analyzed. This
was done to examine possible transferability of learnt pedagogical transformation
competence to the new physics topic of electricity. The findings revealed that the pre-service
teachers had ‘developing level’ of TSPCK in the topic of transfer similar to the finding in the
topic of kinematics. The study demonstrated that focus on a single topic in a methodology
course will enable transfer to another topic provided the teachers have the pre-requisite
content knowledge. The findings of this study would contribute to the training of the
Physical science student teachers and specifically improve their planning of other physics
topics to enhance effective teaching and learning process.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, School of Education,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in partial fulfilment of
the award of Master of Science (MSc.) in Science Education
May, 2016
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Citation
Akinyemi, Olutosin Solomon (2016) Pre-service teachers' development of topic specific PCK in kinematics and transferability of PCK competence to a new physics topic, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/21025>