This study investigates preschool teachers' considerations for including digital tools in science teaching to develop children's learning of science content. Due to the ongoing digitalisation and demands in society, the utilisation of digital tools has increased significantly in educational settings. Recent research about digital tools in early…

This study focuses on how science teachers' Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) can be captured and developed with the support of Content representation (CoRe) in combination with video-based reflection when they plan, teach, and reflect on their teaching in sustainable development (SD). The theoretical framework is based on PCK, and the Refined…

As introductory physics courses increasingly focus on student engagement, the use of Learning Assistants (LAs) has increased. LAs and other instructors need to have sufficient PCK to effectively guide student learning. Our goal was to research LAs observed PCK in the classroom and to develop a set of questions to assess LAs' PCK. Our research…

The purpose of this study was to conceptualize a pedagogical content knowledge framework for informal science educators (ISE-PCK). An initial, hypothetical framework was created grounded in the literature in informal science education (ISE) as analogous to PCK models in formal science education. An exploratory sequential mixed-methods research…

This paper reports on topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) enacted by three pre-service science teachers during their final year school-based internship. An interpretive, qualitative case study was conducted to investigate to what extent the pre-service teachers applied the knowledge taught during a preceding physical science method…

Mechanistic explanations, aiming to disclose details of entities and their activities, employ the act of unpacking which, inherently and paradoxically, produces explanatory gaps--pieces of undisclosed, undetailed mechanistic information. These gaps, termed explanatory black boxes, are often perceived as counterproductive to the teaching of…

This article utilizes a framework for classifying different scientific methods suggested by a philosopher of science (Brandon "Synthese," 99, 59-73, 1994) called Brandon's Matrix. It presents findings from teachers who took part in a funded project in England that looked at the nature of scientific methods in science investigations.…

Teaching pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) at a topic-specific level requires clarity on the content-specific nature of the components employed, as well as the specific features that bring about the desirable depth in teacher explanations. Such understanding is often hazy; yet, it influences the nature of teacher tasks and learning opportunities…

Questioning is a critical strategy for science teachers to scaffold students' exploration and knowledge construction in inquiry-oriented science teaching. In science teacher preparation, open-ended questions asked by teachers are advocated as an advantageous strategy to prompt student thinking. However, insufficient attention has been cast on how…

Despite the importance of evolution to understand biology, there is significant evidence that many biology teachers have difficulties to successfully teach this topic. The purpose of this study is to describe procedures by which a paper-and-pencil instrument to assess teachers' pedagogical content knowledge for evolution (PCK[subscript evo]) was…

This paper addresses two methodological issues related to the assessment of teachers' views of science. The first concerns the distinction between the "nature of science" (NOS) and the nature of "scientific inquiry" (SI): should the points related to NOS and those related to SI be analyzed independently? The second concerns the…

There is a collective agreement about the necessity of content knowledge (CK) as a prerequisite for pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). However, most PCK models lack explanatory power because of the missing link between CK and PCK. Thus, the study firstly attempts to develop a theoretical model that consists of knowledge of students' learning…

One broad research question researchers continue to pursue is: to what degree does science teacher education influence the thinking of preservice science teachers? In other words, how has the thinking of preservice science teachers changed during the course of teacher education? Different models of cognition suggest different foci for this…

While Physics Education Research has a rich tradition of problem-solving scholarship, most of the work has focused on more traditional, well-defined problems. Less work has been done with ill-structured problems, problems that are better aligned with the engineering and design-based scenarios promoted by the Next Generation Science Standards. This…

Two common reasons elementary preservice teachers have low self-efficacy with science teaching is their lack of content knowledge and past negative experiences with science teaching or learning. Holding low self-efficacy beliefs has negative impacts on both the method of science instruction and amount of science instruction delivered in the…