Development and implementation of a training program designed to enhance prospective chemistry teachers' content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge related to misconceptions and teaching efficacy beliefs

Abstract

This study was conducted to develop a training program in order to enhance prospective chemistry teachers' content knowledge in subjects of particulate nature of matter, chemical equilibrium and acid strength, pedagogical content knowledge related to misconceptions and teaching efficacy beliefs and evaluate the effects of this program on participants. The participants were 22 prospective chemistry teachers from a public university. The training program was designed according to student misconceptions in mentioned subjects and implemented several instructional strategies. The participants attended the training program which took five sessions. The findings of this study revealed that prospective chemistry teachers had several misconceptions before attending the training program. After attending the training program, the content knowledge of prospective chemistry teachers were increased in particulate nature of matter, chemical equilibrium and acid strength subjects. The results also indicated that prospective teachers had a high level of pedagogical content knowledge in terms of understanding the nature of misconceptions before attending the training program. Attending the training program increased prospective chemistry teachers' pedagogical content knowledge related to misconceptions in both of understanding the nature of misconceptions and strategies to identify and change student misconceptions aspects. Moreover, the results also showed that the teaching efficacy beliefs of prospective chemistry teachers in terms of efficacy in using particular teaching methods were increased after the training program. Finally, the results showed that teaching efficacy beliefs of prospective chemistry teachers in terms of efficacy in teaching certain chemistry subjects were enhanced in the subject of 'chemical equilibrium', but not affected for the subject of 'particulate nature of matter' and 'acid strength'.