ERIC Number: EJ1105032
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 30
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0950-0693
EISSN: N/A
Developing and Evaluating a Paper-and-Pencil Test to Assess Components of Physics Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Kirschner, Sophie; Borowski, Andreas; Fischer, Hans E.; Gess-Newsome, Julie; von Aufschnaiter, Claudia
International Journal of Science Education, v38 n8 p1343-1372 2016
Teachers' professional knowledge is assumed to be a key variable for effective teaching. As teacher education has the goal to enhance professional knowledge of current and future teachers, this knowledge should be described and assessed. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies quantitatively measures physics teachers' professional knowledge. The study reported in this paper was part of a bigger project with the broader goal of understanding teacher professional knowledge. We designed a test instrument to assess the professional knowledge of physics teachers (N = 186) in the dimensions of "content knowledge" (CK), "pedagogical content knowledge" (PCK), and "pedagogical knowledge" (PK). A model describing the relationships between these three dimensions of professional knowledge was created to inform the design of the tests used to measure CK, PCK, and PK. In this paper, we describe the model with particular emphasis on the PCK part, and the subsequent PCK test development and its implementation in detail. We report different approaches to evaluate the PCK test, including the description of content validity, the examination of the internal structure of professional knowledge, and the analysis of construct validity by testing teachers across different school subjects, teachers from different school types, pre-service teachers, and physicists. Our findings demonstrate that our PCK test results could distinguish physics teachers from the other groups tested. The PCK test results could not be explained by teachers' CK or PK, cognitive abilities, computational skills, or science knowledge.
Descriptors: Evaluation Methods, Tests, Test Format, Science Instruction, Science Education, Science Teachers, Physics, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Teacher Effectiveness, Teacher Education, Construct Validity, Preservice Teachers, Inservice Teacher Education, Teaching Methods, Item Response Theory, Correlation, Higher Education, Statistical Analysis, Item Analysis, Comparative Analysis, Difficulty Level, Test Items, Science Experiments, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Germany
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A