Abstract

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been shown to be important to the work of teachers. Research conducted in physical education has shown the development of PCK is important to the pre-service physical education teacher for three reasons: teachers report they feel more competent in their abilities when they posses pedagogical content knowledge; undergraduates generally do not possess enough pedagogical content knowledge; and developing pedagogical content knowledge is often problematic. To gain more insight into the how PCK develops in pre-service teachers, the purpose of this investigation was to examine and describe knowledge development in student teachers during a secondary, physical education teaching internship when the student teachers were teaching content they perceived themselves to be unfamiliar and familiar. The focus of this investigation was on the types, sources, and perceived relevance of the knowledge two student teachers acquired, and the enacted effects of their knowledge, as they learned to teach a unit of content in which they felt they had either little or extensive knowledge and experience. Data were collected qualitatively via formal and informal interviews, non-participant observations, document analysis, stimulated recall using videotaped classes, and conference analysis. Findings indicated that knowledge of content is crucial to the development of PCK. Throughout the internship, participants acquired various types of knowledge. For example, various components of subject matter knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, PCK, and knowledge of context were acquired. Participants acquired knowledge through a variety of sources. These included books, cooperating teachers, past experiences as students, a teaching peer, their disciplinary background, professional coursework, and daily teaching experience. There were differences in the degree to which the participants were able to develop PCK when their content knowledge was limited, and this limitation affected the delivery of lessons.