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Topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK) enables teachers to transform pedagogically difficult content for specific science topics into forms more easily understood by learners. In science teaching, there is evidence pointing to poor learner performance in key chemistry topics such as stoichiometry. This paper reports on the changes in pre-service teachers' (PSTs) planned TSPCK in stoichiometry. This follows after the practicum that explicitly targeted the development of planned TSPCK for stoichiometry in the methodology class for physical sciences. The study followed a mixed-methods research design and case study as a research strategy. The participants were 10 PSTs in their final year of study for a Bachelor of Education. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected as a set of tests on TSPCK, applied both pre- and post-practicum, using TSPCK tools developed and validated in an earlier study. In both cases, data were analysed using the Rasch method. The distribution of both person and item measures was valid for measuring PSTs' planned TSPCK. In each test, they fell within the conventional fit statistical range of −2 to +2. All of the reliability indices had values ≥ 0.6 and hence were considered to be acceptable. The findings in this study indicated a measured improvement in the quality of TSPCK among the PSTs. In addition, PSTs experienced TSPCK components used in planning to teach stoichiometry at different levels of difficulty. This paper recommends further research exploring how such practicum programmes facilitate changes in PSTs' planned TSPCK and what agencies contribute to these changes in planned TSPCK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creating awareness of environmental sustainability issues through formal education may be an effective way to help citizens deal with these issues. Teachers, however, have not been sufficiently trained on how to teach with sustainability concerns in mind. For this study, a purposively selected group of six chemistry teachers was exposed to an online professional development intervention (PDI) whose content draws on collective pedagogical content knowledge (cPCK) about the extraction of metals and mining as related to environmental sustainability. This paper reports on a study that explores the transfer of knowledge from cPCK to personal PCK (pPCK), and from pPCK to enacted PCK (ePCK). Data were collected using a pre- and post-PDI questionnaire, interviews and a lesson plan template. These tools were used to capture the teachers' pPCK and ePCK. During the analysis of the data, a validated PCK rubric and a master content representation created by experts were used. The PCK components of knowledge of curricular saliency, student thinking and conceptual teaching strategies constituted the lens through which the researchers investigated the chemistry teachers' PCK. The findings of this study revealed that the intervention enhanced the quality of the teachers' ePCK about extraction of metals, by informing their pPCK. It also showed that despite being exposed to the same intervention, the PCK of all the teachers did not develop to the same extent. Four of the six participants showed a positive gain in the quality of their PCK across all three components, while the other two only showed a positive gain on two of the three components. The differences in PCK development within the context of chemistry teaching were attributed to the presence of amplifiers and filters. The study contributes to both theory and practice, highlighting the need for research-informed continuous professional development of teachers in education for sustainability and suggesting ways to infuse sustainability into their teaching of chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study that explored the subject and pedagogical content knowledge displayed by high school mathematics teachers in the Khomas education region in Namibia. The study was based on a quantitative approach using a survey design. A stratified random sampling method was used to select the participants in all the four school circuits in the region. The study population consisted of 79 Grade 12 mathematics teachers from public schools. A sample of 40 mathematics teachers took part in the study, completed a questionnaire and wrote a test. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet was used to sort the data and produce graphs and tables. A paired t-test was also used to determine if a significant difference existed between the participants' subject content knowledge (mathematical knowledge in our context, (MCK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The findings revealed that the participants had some deficiencies on MCK topics such as quadratic equations, angles properties and numbers. They also portrayed weak PCK on fractions, simultaneous and linear equations. This shows that a significant difference exists between the teachers' MCK and PCK with tcalculated = 11.092 greater than the tcritical (between 2.712 and 2.704) at a significance level, α = 0.01 but also that the participants' MCK and PCK were moderately and positively correlated (r = 0.681, p < 0.01). This study recommends that mathematics teachers in the Khomas region be provided frequently with in-service training to strengthen their shortcomings regarding MCK and PCK (knowledge of mathematics tasks, knowledge of learners' misconceptions and difficulties, and knowledge of mathematics instructions). We also recommend further studies to determine how high school mathematics teachers' knowledge can impact learners' academic performance in other education regions in Namibia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has recently been suggested that pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has a concept-specific nature, beyond the topic-specific level of PCK. This paper reports a case study of three pre-service teachers' reported PCK about three fundamental concepts within the topic of electrostatics, namely electrostatic force, electric field and electric field strength. The aim of the study was to compare the quality of the PCK of each of the individual participants across these fundamental concepts. Data was collected using a content representation tool and a lesson planning form prescribed by the participants' teacher training institution. A topic-specific PCK model was adopted as the framework for this study. The model asserts that the content of a particular topic 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, we designed a rubric to assess the concept-specific PCK of the participants on a four-point scale. The results of the study indicated that the PCK of the participants varied across the fundamental concepts of electrostatics, with each participant reporting better PCK for a different concept. The results of the study imply that describing PCK at concept level is appropriate and recommend that PCK should be strengthened at concept level during teacher training to ensure that it develops across all of the concepts within a topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedagogical content knowledge is considered a valuable knowledge base for all science teachers. Thus, promoting its development in all pre-service teacher programmes including a short 1 year Physical Science postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) course is desirable. This paper focuses on the comparison of topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK) at a level of planning to teach between PGCE pre-service teachers (n = 8) and final (fourth) year traditional BEd pre-service teachers (n = 16). Both groups were exposed to an intervention targeting the development of TSPCK in Physical Science topics taught in South Africa's national secondary school curriculum. Data collected from both groups comprised pre–post intervention TSPCK tests and content representations tool for chemical equilibrium. The data analysis entailed the use of a criterion-based rubric for shifts in the quality of planned TSPCK and the content representations were analysed through an in-depth qualitative analysis. The findings revealed an improvement in the PGCE pre-service teachers' planned TSPCK to the same extent as for the BEd pre-service teachers. The PGCE pre-service teachers did not indicate being at an initial advantage in their TSPCK because of their strong content knowledge, but they showed a faster growth path in developing TSPCK. Recommendations made include the promotion of TSPCK discussion in the PGCE programme and a possible re-positioning of such discussions in the BEd programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study surveyed 19 chemistry teachers' stoichiometry pedagogical content knowledge (SPCK) in Ijebu Ode local government area of Ogun state, Nigeria using Malcolm's Physical Science Teachers' SPCK test. The qualitative data were transformed to scores, which revealed the level of chemistry teachers' knowledge of students' prior knowledge, curriculum saliency, what makes stoichiometry easy or difficult to understand representations and conceptual teaching strategies. In addition, the study determined how the level of teachers' SPCK is related to students' stoichiometry achievement. The results showed that 89% of the chemistry teachers provided novice or basic responses for all the five components of SPCK. The group mean of teachers' responses for each of the SPCK components revealed that the teachers had the highest knowledge level for the component of what makes stoichiometry easy or difficult to understand. The group means for the other four SPCK components are below the basic level; specifically, the knowledge of representations and analogies used in stoichiometry teaching and of conceptual teaching strategies were at a very low SPCK level. Out of the 19 teachers, six are classified as novices, eleven are basic and two are developing experts. The results also showed that the teachers' SPCK level is associated with students' achievement in stoichiometry, in that, the students of the developing expert teachers had a significantly higher achievement than their peers taught by the novice and basic level SPCK teachers. Therefore, it is recommended that in-service and pre-service chemistry teachers are exposed to training that will improve their SPCK specifically regarding students' prior knowledge, curriculum saliency, representations and conceptual teaching strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effect of in-service training in the use of the ripple tank equipment on science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about the topic of waves. Three Grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers participated in this qualitative case study. The Refined Consensus Model informed the conceptual framework of this study, considering PCK at a topic level within each of the three realms of PCK. The training exposed teachers to the collective realm of PCK with the intention of developing their personal PCK about the topic. Teachers' personal PCK was explored by means of written Content Representations before as well as after the training. After the training, teachers' enacted PCK was observed and video-recorded while teaching the topic of waves to their learners. Pedagogical reasoning was elicited through video stimulated recall interviews. The post-training interviews also provided insight into participants' general views about the in-service training. The results show that the participants' personal PCK improved and that some of the content and skills taught during in-service training were utilized in the enacted PCK of two of the participants, particularly regarding conceptual teaching strategies. Least improvement occurred for the component of teachers' knowledge of learners' understanding. We found evidence that teachers' beliefs influence their pedagogical reasoning, acting as amplifiers and filters to translate newly acquired personal PCK into enacted PCK: teachers who prioritise hands-on experiences and teaching for understanding as opposed to rote learning are more receptive to training in the use of apparatus. The study therefore shows that training in the use of the ripple tank equipment improved in unique ways each of the teachers' PCK about waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stoichiometry, which deals with the quantitative aspects of Chemistry, is a topic students find challenging and which teachers struggle to teach. South African students' performance in stoichiometry in the final matriculation examinations has led to calls for the topic to be taught better and highlighted the need for teacher professional development. This served as the rationale for this study to design an instrument to measure the quality of experienced Physical Science teachers' topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK) using a mixed-methods approach. Responses by five teachers to open questions on each of five components of TSPCK were used to generate scenario-based items for the instrument. The validity of the instrument was determined through Rasch analysis of responses of a sample of 31 teachers. Both the validity and reliability of the instrument to measure the quality of TSPCK in stoichiometry were found to be acceptable based on the fit statistics and reliability measures generated from the Rasch analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, based on the theory of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge investigated the effectiveness of introducing open source YouTube videos in the teaching and learning of the Chemistry topic 'Group Properties' at a high school in Lesotho. A quasi-experimental design was used for two conveniently selected Form D classes; one class used as the experimental group (n = 49) and the other as a control group (n = 60). The questions in the pre-test and the similar post-test were formulated to establish the learners' cognitive abilities in line with various levels of Bloom's Cognitive Domain. The mean performance of the two groups before the intervention was not statistically different. After introducing the experimental group to YouTube videos the performance of the group was significantly better than that of the control group during the post-test. The performance of the experimental group was also significantly better than that of the control group at the higher cognitive levels of Bloom's Cognitive Domain, namely, at application to evaluation. The incorporation of videos in teaching Chemistry provided a better option than the traditional method of science teaching. The use of the YouTube videos resulted in a doubling of the percentage of the experimental group learners passing the post-test (from 12 to 27%), while the percentage of control group learners passing the tests remained constant at 5% for both the pre-test and the post-test. In light of the significant benefits of using YouTube videos in this context of poor laboratory resources, it is recommended that teachers should be trained to integrate technology in their teaching in order to supplement practical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]