Abstract:

The central concern in this paper is the advancement of the discourse about the professional knowledge for teaching science topics, specifically how such knowledge is taught to science pre-service teachers. In this paper we therefore build on our initial conceptualization of a theoretical construct called the theoretical construct, Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK). Previous studies on this construct have demonstrated success in improving the quality of TSPCK with chemistry topics (Mavhunga,2014). However, what we do not know yet is whether the same success is observable with a physics topic, kinematics. Mixed methods research was used. The study was located in a methodology class of 24 fourth year chemistry pre-service teachers exposed to an intervention over a period of six weeks, with 3 hours per week. The data collected comprised two sets of measurements. The first measurement was data measuring the quality of TSPCK in kinematics using a specifically designed tool. The tool was administered as a set of pre- and post-TSPCK tests. The second set of data was collected from pre-service teachers’ submitted class activities and focus group interviews. The completed TSPCK tools were analysed using a five point scale TSPCK rubric. An inter-rater agreement was calculated at a Cohen Kappa coefficient of 0,80. The findings suggests a statistically significant improvement in the quality of TSPCK from a Basic in the pre-TSPCK test to a Developing level in the post-TSPCK test. Implications for implementing TSPCK as knowledge for teaching science in pre-service teacher programmes are made.

Keywords:

Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Pre-service teachers, Kinematics.