Different approaches to measure teacher's pedagogical content knowledge

Teachers’pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as a facet of professional knowledge has been shown to be an important factor influencing quality of instruction. PCK embraces the idea that teachers have a special notion of content knowledge and pedagogy which they draw on in teaching contents. In this regard, PCK describes the teacher's understanding of'fostering students’ learning process and understanding of specific subject matters. As there is a lack of instruments to investigate PCK in natural sciences, reliable and valid tests are yet to be constructed. Closing this gap, the following papers present different approaches on measuring teachers’ PCK, for example different test designs for diverse subjects and school-forms. The measurement of PCK will be presented regarding biology, technology and physics content for primary and secondary school teachers as well as pre-service teachers and students. Additionally advantages and disadvantages of open-ended and multiple choice items and their analysis will be discussed.