Zusammenhänge fachspezifischer Vorstellungen von Grundschullehrkräften zum Lehren und Lernen mit Fortschritten von Schülerinnen und Schülern im konzeptuellen naturwissenschaftlichen Verständnis

Fachspezifischen Vorstellungen von Lehrkräften zum Lehren und Lernen wird eine große Bedeutung für den Lernerfolg von SchülerInnen zugesprochen. Einige wenige Studien, insbesondere aus dem Bereich Mathematik, konnten bereits zeigen, dass sich solche Lehrervorstellungen in Lernzuwächsen von SchülerInnen niederschlagen. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht Zusammenhänge fachspezifischer Vorstellungen von Grundschullehrkräften zum Lehren und Lernen mit Fortschritten von SchülerInnen im konzeptuellen naturwissenschaftlichen Verständnis als Kriterium des Lernerfolgs. An der Studie nahmen 46 Lehrkräfte und 932 SchülerInnen, die von diesen Lehrkräften unterrichtet wurden, teil. Lernfortschritte der SchülerInnen wurden im Rahmen von Unterricht zum „Schwimmen und Sinken“ erhoben. Die Vorstellungen der Lehrkräfte wurden mit neun Likert-basierten Skalen erfasst. Ergebnisse aus Mehrebenen-Analysen zeigen z.T. enge Zusammenhänge zwischen Lehrervorstellungen und Lernfortschritten der SchülerInnen

Teachers' Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge: The Role of Structural Differences in Teacher Education

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and content knowledge (CK) are key components of teacher competence that affect student progress. However, little is known about how teacher education affects the development of CK and PCK. To address this question, our research group constructed tests to directly assess mathematics teachers’ CK and PCK. Based on these tests, we compared the PCK and CK of four groups of mathematics teachers at different points in their teaching careers in Germany. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that PCK and CK measurement was satisfactorily invariant across the teacher populations considered. As expected, the largest differences in CK and PCK were found between the beginning and the end of initial teacher education. Differences in the structures of teacher education were reasonably well reflected in participants’ CK and PCK

Epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge as predictors of the construction of different types of arguments on socioscientific issues

This study investigates whether university students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge about controversial socioscientific issues (SSIs) can predict the different types of arguments that students construct. Two hundred forty‐three university students were asked to construct different types of supportive arguments—social, ethical, economic, scientific, ecological—as well as counterarguments and rebuttals after they had read a scenario on a SSI. Participants’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge were assessed separately. Results showed that students’ epistemic beliefs and prior knowledge predicted the quantity, quality, and diversity of the different types of arguments the students constructed. In particular, students who held sophisticated epistemic beliefs about the structure of knowledge and exhibited relatively more robust prior knowledge scores, produced arguments of greater quantity, better quality, and higher diversity than students with less sophisticated epistemic beliefs and low prior knowledge scores. Educational implications are discussed

El Conocimiento Didáctico del Contenido en ciencias: estado de la cuestión

This paper gives a descriptive overview of the literature related to Pedagogical Content Knowledge - PCK - in the sciences. It is expected that this review can contribute to a better understanding of PCK, pointing out what has been investigated about this concept. Specifically, we analyze: a) how PCK is defined, what are its main features and how it has been appropriated by teachers; b) the relationship between PCK, knowledge of the contents to be taught and students learning; c) how PCK was actually used in teachers' training and teachers' evaluation; and, d) the scientific areas in which PCK has been studied. It concludes that PCK is an essential tool for improving the quality of teacher training