Assessing Content Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Physical Education

Purpose

Educational researchers define pedagogical content knowledge as the blending of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. The current investigation examined several variables as indicators of content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge of two experienced elementary physical education teachers, teaching two content areas (strong and weak).

Methods

All Institutional Review Board policies were followed and both teachers and their students provided their consent for participation. This three-phase study entailed a descriptive methodology, based on a behavioral analytic framework. In the first two phases, experienced teachers were interviewed to identify possible contingencies the teachers' behavior is operating under and that cannot be discovered through direct observation. The third phase involved direct observation on two of the teachers, teaching their strong and weak pre-identified instructional units. The following variables were measured: types and sequence of tasks, instructional forms used, recipient of tasks, type and number of cues used, antecedents for task modification, type of adaptations, appropriateness of individual adaptations and appropriateness of tasks delivered to the entire class. Data were presented on graphs and visually analyzed.

Analysis/Results

The results demonstrated differences between the teachers' strong and weak unit of instruction in terms of the depth and appropriateness of variables assessed. The findings help in better explaining the link between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.

Conclusions

Acquisition of proficient content knowledge was found to be vital for the acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge. examples of how to assess teachers' acquisition of content knowledge will be discussed