Assessing the Impact of Content Knowledge of Economic and Management Sciences Teaching and Learning: A Case Study of Second Year Student-teachers in a South African University

The purpose of this research was to assess the impact of content knowledge on Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) teaching and learning for second-year student-teachers of one selected South African University. It was observed that during the teaching practice, some student-teachers were struggling to impart appropriately some EMS topics like financial literacy to mention a few, in explaining and responding properly and convincingly to learners’ questions. This observation triggers the quest to assess the impact of content knowledge of EMS teaching and learning on second-year student-teachers of a selected South African university. Technological pedagogical content knowledge theoretical framework underpinned this research. An interpretivism research paradigm was adopted for this study. A purposive sampling method was used to select six student-teachers enrolled in the Bachelor of Education in Senior Phase and Further Education and Training with specialisation in commerce stream programme in the 2024 academic year. Semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face as a data collection method to gather data after permission was sought from participants. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data from the participants. The findings revealed that several participants lacked the financial literacy background content knowledge necessary to effectively address the EMS subject. Additionally, omitting EMS themes was found to be a contributing factor in student-teachers’ difficulties in effectively teaching the subject. It is recommended that the curriculum offered to student-teachers in the commerce stream be reviewed to enable all of them to gain graduate attributes.