The impact of teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in the teaching of 'capacitance' to grade 11 physical sciences learners in Mpumalanga, South Africa.

摘要

There has been poor performance of learners doing Physical Sciences in Mpumalangaudin the past 6 years. This was evident on the exam statistics provided by the Nationaluddepartment of education. (DoBE, 2012). The statistics show that learners from previouslyuddisadvantaged schools obtained an average performance of between 20% and 40% inudtheir end of year results. The topic on “Capacitance” was previously taught to first yearuduniversity students but has now been included to grade 11 and grade 12 syllabi as audnew topic. The teachers’ ability to construct effective lessons on “Capacitance” hasudbeen blamed by both circuit managers and subject advisors for Physical Sciences.udThis study has investigated the impact of teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledgeud(PCK) in teaching the topic on “Capacitance”. The investigation focused on the teachingudstrategies that teachers use to help learners address learning problems in PhysicaludSciences, in the topic on “Capacitance”. The choice of this topic followed an interviewudconducted with two teachers attached to a teacher development programme.ud“Capacitance” is one of the new topics in which learners performed poorly.udThe research was guided by the following two research questions:ud1. How is the teachers’ pedagogical knowledge (PCK) portrayed in teachingudCapacitance?ud2. To what extent have teachers’ mastered the Content Knowledge aboutudCapacitance?udA case study involving two grade 11 Physical Sciences teachers was utilized to gain theudunderstanding of the teaching strategies. Data was collected through interviews andudclassroom observations. The data was analyzed by first discussing the two teachers’uddepth of PCK during their teaching of the lessons on “Capacitance”. The data analysisudalso focused on the two teachers’ integration of Content Knowledge (CK) in theirudteaching. In addition, the data analysis enquired the teachers’ extent of content mastery.udThis was achieved by discussing the teachers’ Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) andudcurricular saliency based on the observed lessons and recorded interviews.