Development of Items for a Pedagogical Content Knowledge Test Based on Empirical Analysis of Pupils' Errors

Abstract

In view of the lack of instruments for measuring biology teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), this article reports on a study about the development of PCK items for measuring teachers' knowledge of pupils' errors and ways for dealing with them. This study investigated 9th and 10th grade German pupils' (n = 461) drawings in an achievement test about the knee-jerk in biology, which were analysed by using the inductive qualitative analysis of their content. The empirical data were used for the development of the items in the PCK test. The validation of the items was determined with think-aloud interviews of German secondary school teachers (n = 5). If the item was determined, the reliability was tested by the results of German secondary school biology teachers (n = 65) who took the PCK test. The results indicated that these items are satisfactorily reliable (Cronbach's alpha values ranged from 0.60 to 0.65). We suggest a larger sample size and American biology teachers be used in our further studies. The findings of this study about teachers' professional knowledge from the PCK test could provide new information about the influence of teachers' knowledge on their pupils' understanding of biology and their possible errors in learning biology.

Keywords:

• Professional knowledge
• Biology teachers
• Pedagogical content knowledge
• Pupils' errors
• Pupils' understanding

Acknowledgement

The presented project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research; it is a cooperation project embedded in the framework program of ‘empirical research in education’ (01JH0904).