The contribution of teaching practices on construction of the pedagogical content knowledge of future physical education teachers

Abstract

Purpose: the present study examined how teaching practices fostered PCK knowledge components in future physical education teachers with different levels of training. Methods: participants consisted of four pairs of future teachers with different levels of training in a physical education licensure program. Interview and questionnaire data were collected during 3 academic semesters. The data were qualitatively analysed into units of meaning, which were coded for 4 knowledge components (student knowledge, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and context knowledge). Results: findings indicated that study participants’ PCK primarily drew on the student and content knowledge components. Discussion/Conclusion: comparisons between knowledge components and between pairs found that participants’ PCK primarily employed the student and content knowledge components and that the pedagogy and context knowledge components of participants’ PCK were less well developed.