The nature and development of interaction among components of pedagogical content knowledge in practicum

Highlights

• When necessary support is provided, preservice teachers are able to develop PCK.

• The development in the interplay among PCK components was idiosyncratic.

• PCK interaction can be nourished through mentoring in preservice teacher education.

Abstract

This secondary analysis study focused on how interactions among preservice teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) components developed throughout a 14-week CoRe-based mentoring-enriched practicum course, and the nature of those interactions. Data were collected from three preservice teachers, information-rich cases, by the use of content representation (CoRe) and semi-structured interviews. Content analysis and the constant comparative method were employed in the data analysis. Results revealed that the development of integrations was idiosyncratic. Additionally, PCK integration moved from fragmented to a more integrated and coherent one by the end of the semester. Implications for science teacher education and research are discussed.

Introduction

Over the years, there has been considerable debate among those in the field of science education about the criteria for being a qualified teacher. One of the criteria, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), was introduced to the science education community by Lee Shulman, 1986, Shulman, 1987. PCK was conceptualized as “an understanding of how particular topics, problems, or issues are organized, presented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction” (Shulman, 1987, p. 8). Since then, science educators have directed increased attention to the role of PCK in science teaching and to the contexts for PCK development (Nilsson & Loughran, 2012). Concurrently, researchers have reported that novice teachers need support and guidance for their professional and PCK development in the first few years of their careers, due to the complex nature of the teaching profession (Wildman, Niles, Magliaro, & McLaughlin, 1989). Therefore, the quality of preservice teacher education gains importance in ensuring that individuals enter the teaching profession with more classroom experience and deeper knowledge.

Teachers should have a firm understanding of all PCK components (e.g., knowledge of learner and instructional strategies). More importantly, according to the scholars, in order to effectively plan and enact instruction for a certain group of students in a specific context, teachers must be able to integrate those components into PCK in a coherent way (Loughran et al., 2006, van Driel et al., 2002). This interplay is important for PCK development; the components interact with each other in highly complex ways (Park & Oliver, 2008). Although interplay is vital for PCK development, researchers have focused more on how various opportunities (e.g., explicit PCK use, teaching experience, and teacher certification programs focusing on some PCK components such as knowledge of learner and instructional strategy) provided in preservice teacher education courses support the development of PCK components separately (De Jong and van Driel, 2004, Hanuscin, 2013, Hume and Berry, 2011). The literature lacks research on how teacher education courses stimulate the development of preservice teachers' ability to integrate PCK components. Surprisingly, careful and deliberate consideration of how these components integrate with each other to structure PCK has been an unexplored issue for science teacher educators until recently (Aydin and Boz, 2013, Kaya, 2009, Padilla et al., 2008, Padilla and van Driel, 2011, Park and Chen, 2012, Park and Oliver, 2008), considering the long history of PCK since 1986. Those studies solely explored the nature of the interaction among PCK components in the instruction of experienced teachers. Other researchers have investigated interaction among PCK components; however, they have only focused on one or two components, exploring how two specific components are related (e.g., Cohen and Yarden, 2009, Veal and Kubasko, 2003), or how the development of one component affects the whole of PCK and one's teaching practice (e.g., Kamen, 1996, Matese, 2005). Still, the way that the interaction among all PCK components develops has not been fully resolved. Moreover, research shows that preservice teachers have fragmented PCK (Lee, Brown, Luft, & Roehrig, 2007) and the literature highlights the importance of support to enable them to integrate PCK components (Aydin and Boz, 2013, Kaya, 2009, Park and Chen, 2012). Therefore, further research is needed regarding the nature and development of the interaction among preservice teachers' PCK components, and regarding how various contexts stimulate the interaction of PCK components. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the development of interaction among all PCK components of preservice teachers during a practicum course. In the following section, we present related literature on PCK and the interplay among PCK components.