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Degree

Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Educational Theory and Practice, 2005.

Abstract

Previous studies using quantitative methods have attempted to correlate teachers’ content knowledge with students’ acquisition of subject matter knowledge. Lack of highly significant correlations between teachers’ content knowledge and students’ achievement seems to indicate that increasing the level of teachers’ content knowledge has limited influence on students’ emergent subject matter knowledge. More recent studies using qualitative methods have shown teachers’ content knowledge influences teachers’ instructional practice. However, few studies using qualitative methods have examined the interrelationships between teachers’ content knowledge and students’ emergent subject matter knowledge. This study was developed from a theory on the interrelationships between teachers’ content knowledge of rational numbers and students’ emergent conceptual knowledge of rational numbers. Two teachers were chosen from among four candidates based on the differences in their written responses on a test of rational number (fraction) knowledge and their location in the same school system. The case studies of these two teachers were generated from data collected through: (a) observations and videotapes of each classroom as the teachers conducted their unit on rational numbers, (b) interviews with the teachers and selected students from their classes, and (c) teachers’ and students’ responses on a test of rational number knowledge. The cases were compared and contrasted to illuminate and illustrate the theoretical model of interrelationships and intervening contributions and limitations of interrelationships between teachers’ content knowledge of rational numbers and students’ emergent conceptual knowledge of rational numbers. The cases confirm the theoretical model that interrelationships between teachers’ content knowledge and students’ emergent conceptual knowledge are weak. The cases confirm the interrelationships suggested by the model between teachers’ content knowledge and instructional practice. Teachers’ content knowledge contributes to, but is not equivalent to, their pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge mediates/filters the impact of teachers’ content knowledge on their design of the instructional environment. As the model would predict, the varieties of students’ emergent conceptual knowledge across and within the instructional environments do not replicate the teachers’ content knowledge. The model suggests that students’ prior knowledge, predispositions, and /or experiences could mediate/filter the contributions of instructional practice to students’ emergent conceptual knowledge.

Keywords

teachers' content knowledge; students' emergent conceptual knowledge; theoretical model; pedagogical content knowledge; instructional environment; instruction; equi-partitioning scheme; beliefs; Rational Number Test

Advisor

Douglas T. Owens

Pages

358p.

Document number: osu1124225634
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1124225634

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