Pedagogical content knowledge in students majoring in physical education vs. sport science. The same but different?

Abstract

AbstractPedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is a special feature providing the teacher with knowledge to transform the content in ways that make it understandable to learners. This is of special importance in physical education (PE), since it is significantly different to other school subjects in many ways i.e., it is the only subject whereby physical activity (PA) is a primary means of accomplishing educational objectives. Given the importance of PCK, it is of special interest to explore the specificity of PCK in in the field of sport science. As research on PCK in German speaking countries is still at the beginning, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 622 students to explore potential differences in relation to education programmes (PE Teacher Education n = 431, sport science n = 191). Measurement invariance (MI) between the groups was carried out using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis models to ensure latent mean scores can be compared meaningfully. The progressive evaluation of MI confirms that it is possible to measure the PCK (scalar) equivalently across PETE and sport science students, along with additional variables relevant to PCK. PETE students outperformed sport science students in terms of the “instruction” subdimension (also in different stages of study), whereas not in the “student” subdimension. Prior experience in the field of PA is an advantage for high scores only in the “instruction” subdimension. Finally, the study provides first insights into the specificity of PCK in the field of sport science.