Examining the relationship between science teachers beliefs and the PCK in stoichiometry in final year pre-service teachers

Abstract

PCK is revered as the type of teacher professional knowledge required to transform subject matter into a form that is accessible by learners and when considered at a topic specific level, the knowledge is known as Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK). Research has ranked stoichiometry as one of the topic that is difficult to teach and learn due to its abstract nature. It has been reported that South African High School learners in particular, perform poorly in questions on this topic in the final national examination. Therefore, this may suggest that the science teachers are unable to teach stoichiometry in a manner that secures learners’ conceptual understanding, therefore poor quality of TSPCK of teaching the topic. The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between pre-service teacher’s TSPCK in stoichiometry and the beliefs they hold about teaching science. A mixed (MM) approach was used. The sample of pre-service teachers who were asked to participate in the research study was 24, these pre-service teachers have completed an intervention in their fourth year physical science methodology course on developing TSPCK in stoichiometry. Data comprised primarily of tools in TSPCK and science teacher beliefs completed at the end of the intervention, which happened to be the end of the course. Three key findings were made: (i) on completion of the intervention, pre-service teachers exhibited a functional good quality of TSPCK corresponding to ‘Developing’ according to the rubric used. (ii)The majority of pre-service teachers were found to hold transitional science teacher beliefs; and these were found to have an independent relationship with the quality of TSPCK as the professional teacher knowledge. The implication of this finding to the pre-service teachers is that pre-service teachers may hold teacher beliefs that are not necessarily corresponding to the quality of their professional knowledge of teaching a given topic (TSPCK). Secondly, pre-service science teacher’s science teacher beliefs are more likely to change as they were found to be in a category called transitional, which is not strong in neither teacher nor learner centered oriented beliefs. Recommendations promote the development of TSPCK in stoichiometry and other core topics in physical science