Towards a Consensus Model: Literature Review of How Science Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge Is Investigated in Empirical Studies

Abstract

This chapter presents a systematic review of the science education literature to identify how researchers investigate science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Specifically, we focus on empirical studies of individual science teachers’ PCK published in peer-reviewed science education and teacher education journals since 2008. For each of the reviewed studies, we identify (1) the research context of the investigation; (2) the major purpose of the study; (3) the conceptualisation of PCK in the study; (4) the data sources used to investigate teachers’ PCK; and (5) the approaches used to determine teachers’ PCK. Using this collated information, we provide an overview of how the PCK concept is used, interpreted and investigated within the science education community. The review reveals that researchers conceptualise and operationalise PCK differently. Consequently, they investigate PCK in highly diverse ways and use a wide range of data sources and approaches to capture and determine teachers’ PCK, which in turn generates different kinds of qualitative and quantitative data. Collectively, our findings reveal gaps in the PCK literature and highlight several points of divergence in thinking around the PCK concept within the PCK research community in the field of science education. The findings also provide evidence from the literature supporting the need to build upon and further refine the Consensus Model (CM) that emerged from the first (1st) PCK Summit in 2012 to further science education research.