The Development of Preservice Chemistry Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Abstract

This study investigated the development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) within a group of 12 preservice chemistry teachers (all M.Sc.) during the first semester of their one-year post-graduate teacher education program. The study focused on PCK with respect to a central issue in science teaching, that is, the relation between observable phenomena, like chemical reactions, and macroscopic properties (e.g., boiling point, solubility) on the one hand, and their interpretation in terms of corpuscular characteristics on the other hand (macro-micro). For secondary school students, shifting mentally between the macro and micro levels is usually problematic, whereas their teachers are often u..