Measuring primary school teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in technology education with a multiple choice test

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a crucial part of a teacher’s knowledge base for teaching. Studies in the field of technology education for primary schools showed that this domain of teacher knowledge is related to pupils’ increased learning, motivation, and interest. The common methods to investigate teachers’ PCK are often complicated, and time and labour consuming. Hence, a challenge in measuring teachers’ PCK is to construct an instrument that is time and labour-efficient, and makes it possible to investigate large sample sizes. This paper illustrates how a multiple choice test to measure teachers’ PCK in primary technology education was designed and validated. The procedure of test construction and results related to the validation of the test are presented. It is concluded that the systematic procedure that was followed is effective for the construction of a valid test Statistical analyses showed that test-retest reliability as well as convergent validity of the test is satisfying. Despite the heterogeneity of the construct, measurement of PCK with a multiple choice test has clear-cut advantages compared to qualitative methods.