530 Physik
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Pre-service physics teachers often do not recognise the relevance for their future career in their university content knowledge courses. A lower perceived relevance can, however, have a negative effect on their motivation and on their academic success. Several intervention studies have been undertaken with the goal to increase this perceived relevance. A previous study shows that conceptual physics problems used in university physics courses are perceived by pre-service physics teachers as more relevant for their future career than regular, quantitative problems. It is however not clear, what the students' meaning of the construct 'relevance' is: what makes a problem more relevant to them than another problem? To answer this question, N = 7 pre-service teachers were interviewed using the repertory grid technique, based on the personal construct theory. Nine physics problems were discussed with regards to their perceived relevance and with regards to problem properties that distinguish these problems from each other. We are able to identify six problem properties that have a positive influence on the perceived relevance. Physics problems that are based on these properties should therefore potentially have a higher perceived relevance, which can have a positive effect on the motivation of the pre-service teachers who solve these problems.
Professional knowledge is an important source of science teachers' actions in the classroom (e.g., personal professional content knowledge [pedagogical content knowledge, PCK] is the source of enacted PCK in the refined consensus model [RCM] for PCK). However, the evidence for this claim is ambiguous at best. This study applied a cross-lagged panel design to examine the relationship between professional knowledge and actions in one particular instructional situation: explaining physics. Pre- and post a field experience (one semester), 47 preservice physics teachers from four different universities were tested for their content knowledge (CK), PCK, pedagogical knowledge (PK), and action-related skills in explaining physics. The study showed that joint professional knowledge (the weighted sum of CK, PCK, and PK scores) at the beginning of the field experience impacted the development of explaining skills during the field experience (beta = .38**). We interpret this as a particular relationship between professional knowledge and science teachers' action-related skills (enacted PCK): professional knowledge is necessary for the development of explaining skills. That is evidence that personal PCK affects enacted PCK. In addition, field experiences are often supposed to bridge the theory-practice gap by transforming professional knowledge into instructional practice. Our results suggest that for field experiences to be effective, preservice teachers should start with profound professional knowledge.
Pre-service physics teachers often do not recognise the relevance for their future career in their university content knowledge courses. A lower perceived relevance can, however, have a negative effect on their motivation and on their academic success. Several intervention studies have been undertaken with the goal to increase this perceived relevance. A previous study shows that conceptual physics problems used in university physics courses are perceived by pre-service physics teachers as more relevant for their future career than regular, quantitative problems. It is however not clear, what the students' meaning of the construct 'relevance' is: what makes a problem more relevant to them than another problem? To answer this question, N = 7 pre-service teachers were interviewed using the repertory grid technique, based on the personal construct theory. Nine physics problems were discussed with regards to their perceived relevance and with regards to problem properties that distinguish these problems from each other. We are able to identify six problem properties that have a positive influence on the perceived relevance. Physics problems that are based on these properties should therefore potentially have a higher perceived relevance, which can have a positive effect on the motivation of the pre-service teachers who solve these problems.