Identification and measurement of science teachers' subject matter knowledge about pressure

The common purpose of this study is to describe and explore science teachers' subject matter knowledge about the content, pressure. Five randomly selected science teachers working in middle schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and located in Çerkezköy district of Tekirdağ province participated in the study. The study is a case study which is a qualitative research method. First, an exam with 12 open ended questions compatible with MoNE objectives and related to solid, liquid, and gas pressure were prepared. Two expert opinion was applied for the content validity. After parent permissions were taken, the exam was administered to 159 8th and 9th grade students attending to middle schools affiliated to MoNE. Students' responses given to each question were categorized to be utilized for assessing teachers' subject matter knowledge. Afterwards, to assess science teachers' subject matter knowledge related to pressure, a semi-structured interview protocol with seven items was prepared. While preparing the protocol, the questions from Frank and Speer (2013) were also utilized. Semi-structured interviews were held with five science teachers randomly selected from different schools. The interviews that were recorded as voice were transcribed. The transcription was created according to transcript writing rules as specified by Otero and Harlow (2009). The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Generated codes and themes were also reviewed by two experts. Theoretical framework of the study is based on the approach to studying mathematical knowledge for teaching reported by Ball, Thames, and Phelps (2008). In this context, subject matter knowledge is divided into themes such as common content knowledge (CCK), specialized content knowledge (SCK), knowledge of content and student (KCS), and knowledge of content and teaching (KCT). A color is assigned to each theme in this study. The transcribed teacher interviews were analyzed by coloring compatible with the themes. Furthermore, correct, partially correct, and incorrect teacher knowledge was coded as A, B, and C, respectively. Teacher expressions for each question were tabulated according to the themes and codes. Almost all teacher expressions were used. Frequency and frequency percentages of the expressions were calculated and the quantitative data were examined. Subject matter knowledge of science teachers was explored with this study. According to the results, the science teachers were observed to possess CCK, SCK, KCS, and KCT with different frequencies. They were observed to possess 36,63% correct, 46,54% partially correct, and 16,83% incorrect CCK; 37,08% correct, 37,64% partially correct, and 25,28% incorrect SCK; 74,28% correct, 15,72% partially correct, and 10% incorrect KCS; 41,07% correct, 33,93% partially correct, and 25,00% incorrect KCT. Based on these results, it was detected that the teachers possess insufficient subject matter knowledge related to the pressure content. When the related literature was reviewed, no research was encountered exploring science teacher knowledge based on the approach of Ball et al. (2008). Related to the pressure content, it was seen that there are thesis and dissertations about students' knowledge, candidate science teachers' knowledge, or students' achievement. In the context of pedagogical content knowledge, a large amount of research from different disciplines were encountered. Therefore, it is hoped that this study at which science teachers' subject matter knowledge is investigated based on the approach of Ball et al. (2008) will provide significant contributions to the literature. Such studies are supposed to provide education faculties and MoNE with beneficial knowledge. It is supposed that similar studies about different science content may supply a serious amount of knowledge accumulation related to science teachers' or prospective science teachers' content knowledge. Thus, the quality of pre-service or in-service training necessary for their professional development may be increased. Keywords: Teacher Proficiency, Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK), Pressure, Science Knowledge for Teaching