Research on Science Teacher Knowledge and Its Development
Jan van Driel, Anne L. Hume, Amanda Berry
Abstract
This chapter focuses on science teacher knowledge and its development, both in the context of initial teacher education and of in-service teachers’ professional learning activities. It begins with an overview of teacher knowledge research, briefly discusses some of the different strands in this field of research and some of the models that are used to frame this research. Using knowledge of instructional strategies as an example of a well-established and recognized component of PCK, Carlson et al. pointed out that this component only appeared as part of the (public) topic-specific professional knowledge of the CM. Thus, it could be inferred that knowledge of instructional strategies was not considered part of a teacher’s personal PCK when clearly it is. The method of principal component analysis revealed a strong association between knowledge of student understanding and knowledge of instructional strategies and representations.