Pedagogical content knowledge and primary school physical education outcomes

[Truncated abstract] Physical educators are required to provide children with the necessary skills to equip them for successful participation in lifelong physical activity (Trost, 2005; Curriculum Council, 1998). Hastie (1994) identifies the need to increase knowledge concerning teacher effectiveness by identifying teacher characteristics that lead to higher levels of student achievement. Knowledge of how to teach specific content in specific contexts has been defined by Melaldo, Blanco & Ruiz (1998) as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). This study served to determine the extent to which the teachers were displaying PCK in their teaching. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore the relationship between PCK and student outcomes along with the relationship between PCK and the school. Within this study, female PE teachers (n=5) and students (n=125, 9-13 years of age) from five co-educational non-government schools, within the Perth metropolitan region participated in the project in term two of 2008. These teachers were PE specialists, responsible for the planning, teaching and assessing of PE in primary schools. This study used Grossman (1990) to evidence PCK in teaching and evaluate the impact of PCK. Grossman (1990) has defined four elements of PCK; knowledge and beliefs about the purpose of teaching, knowledge of student's understanding of subject matter, knowledge of instructional strategies and knowledge of curriculum content. To assess the impact of these four theoretical elements, this study made them operational through the use of a rigorous, practical data collection process. Firstly, the teacher’s theoretical belief system was determined using Ennis and Chen’s (1995) VOI-2.