Pedagogical Factors Affecting the Translation of Pedagogical Content Knowledge About Electrostatics into Practice

ABSTRACTTeaching practice internships provide opportunities for pre-service teachers (PSTs) to enact their knowledge in real classroom settings. This paper investigated PSTs’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about electrostatics, its translation into practice and factors that affect the translation. The refined consensus model (RCM) of PCK served as theoretical framework. Guided by the RCM, two manifestations of enacted PCK (ePCK) focusing on lesson planning (ePCKP) and teaching (ePCKT) were investigated. Data reflecting ePCKP was collected using content representations (CoRe) tools and lesson planning forms. Data reflecting the ePCKT was explored using classroom observations. The components of the grand PCK rubric served as the analytical framework. These are teacher knowledge and skills related to (i) curricular saliency, (ii) learners’ understanding of concepts, and (iii) conceptual teaching strategies including representations. These components were used to analyze the manifestations of ePCK before they were compared. Components that revealed variations between ePCKP and ePCKT were used to formulate interview questions to elicit the pedagogical factors that affected the translation of the PCK into practice. The results revealed multiple instances where there were misalignments between ePCKP and ePCKT. The misalignments were ascribed to the following pedagogical factors: interactions with learners, the involvement of mentor teachers, reflections, management of time for teaching concepts, and teacher efficacy. The results have implications for PST education and mentorship during teaching practice internships.KEYWORDS: Electrostaticsknowledge and practicepedagogical content knowledgepedagogical factorspre-service teacher education Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Ethical statementThis research was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Pretoria and the Gauteng department of education. Reference number: SM 18/04/01.Additional informationFundingThis work was funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa, Grant number [TTK180411319423].