Secondary students’ perceptions of their teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge: a scale development study

ABSTRACT

Students’ perceptions are one of the sources that can be used to capture teachers’ PCK. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a scale to determine secondary students’ perceptions of their teachers’ PCK. Validity and reliability studies were conducted with 659 students. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were done. The scale named secondary school students’ perceptions of their teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (SPTPCK) scale has two parts. The first part includes four factors containing perceptions about knowledge of students, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment. These factors explain 59.340% of the total variance. The second part includes four factors containing perceptions about student-centered, academic rigor, examination-centered and didactic orientations. These factors explain 63.059% of the total variance. The analyses show that the scale is statistically valid and reliable and can be used for examining students’ perceptions of their teachers’ PCK.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogical content knowledge
• scale development
• students’ perceptions

Acknowledgments

We thank The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) due to the support it provided to the first author of this study throughout her doctoral dissertation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A part of this study was presented as an oral presentation at the meeting of IV. National Chemistry Education Congress (IV. Ulusal Kimya Egitimi Kongresi), Balıkesir University, Turkey. This study has been developed from the doctoral thesis conducted by the first author under the supervision of second author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sinem Uner

Sinem Uner is a research assistant at Gazi University. She has Master’s and PhD degrees in the same university about chemistry education. Her areas of interest and research are pedagogical content knowledge, pre-service science teachers’ teaching images and pre-service chemistry teacher education.

Huseyin Akkus

Huseyin Akkus is an associate professor at Gazi University. He has Master’s and PhD degrees in the same university about chemistry education. His areas of interest and research are pedagogical content knowledge, pre-service chemistry teacher education, conceptual change and teaching chemistry with analogies.