The development and exploration of preservice physics teachers' pedagogical content knowledge: From a methods course to teaching practice

This study was conducted to describe four preservice physics teachers' development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) from the PCK-based Physics Methods Course to teaching practice. A multi-method evaluation was used to collect data: pre- and post-lesson preparation; a semistructured group interview about cases; an observation of teaching and semistructured interview with preservice teachers after teaching; a semistructured interview of cooperating teachers and university supervisors; and collection of related documents. The constant comparative method was employed to analyze data. The results revealed that the PCK-based Physics Methods Course potentially helped the participants to develop increased depth and breadth of understanding of each component of PCK, and to progressively develop more complete topic-specific PCK in the topic of "force and motion" by adding increasingly more complex relationships among components of PCK. The periods of PCK modeling and micro-teaching were regarded as essential parts of the course. During teaching practice however, the participants faced difficulties in transferring their topic-specific PCK developed in the course into real practice. The school context and culture had a strong potential to affect their development and implementation of PCK - the two most important factors were the supervision of the cooperating teachers and the characteristics of the students. Holistically, the process of PCK development was seen as an individual process, which depends on each participant's knowledge and experiences concerning components of PCK developed prior to and during the course, and in teaching practice.