Connections between Content Knowledge and Personal Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Electricity Topics

This study examines primary school pre-service teachers’ content knowledge, personal pedagogical content knowledge (pPCK), and connections between pre-service teachers’ content knowledge and pPCK in serial and parallel connection in the electricity topic. Magnusson model, PCK mapping approach, and Refined Consensus Model were used as a theoretical framework. A total of 26 primary school juniors participated in the study. Convenient sampling was used to collect data, which was gathered through two open-ended questions. Data analysis included inductive coding for content knowledge, and the PCK mapping approach was used to analyze participants’ pPCK. Then, the two analysis results were compared to see the connections between content knowledge and pPCK. The findings revealed three different knowledge areas, namely personal PCK, general pedagogical knowledge, and pseudo-PCK. Comparison of content knowledge and PCK results revealed that those who knew the content could produce personal PCK that aligns with high-quality teaching. On the other hand, the ones having limited content knowledge produced either general pedagogical knowledge that ignores content knowledge or pseudo-PCK using wrong content knowledge in their teaching plan. These results can help us to understand the complex relationship between content knowledge and PCK.