ECONOMICS TEACHERS’ USE OF TOPIC SPECIFIC PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE IN TEACHING MARKET DYNAMICS

Abstract

The poor learners’ understanding of specific topic ‘Market Dynamics’ (MD) is a concern in South Africa secondary schools and so it is globally. Many researchers and education stakeholders in South Africa point to the need to use TS-PCK to improve learners’ understanding of MD. This research aimed to examine economics teachers’ teaching of Market Dynamics (MD) in order to understand how the teaching and learning of MD could be improved using topic Specific PCK. Using Mavhunga’s TS-PCK as the theoretical framework. Two TS-PCK components were examined in the research namely, content knowledge (What is that makes a topic difficult to teach?) and representations were used to gain an in–depth understanding of teachers’ use of TS-PCK in teaching MD. It was a descriptive case study design. Purposeful samples of three economics teachers of 10th, 11th and 12th grade were selected. A semi-structured interview consisting of 18 items was used to generate data for the research while a qualitative data analysis technique, namely thematic analysis was used to analyze the data generated. The results showed that the three economics teachers sampled for the research were able to use their TS-Content Knowledge adequately in different Content Knowledge domains to understand what makes a topic difficult to teach or learn. The result also showed that the participating teachers identified difficult areas that are challenging to teach in the topic of MD but were unable to explain and give cogent reasons why those areas were challenging for learners to understand. Further results on teachers’ use of TS-PCK based on ‘representations’ revealed that the teachers effectively used analogies and examples in teaching market dynamics but struggled to find activities to illustrate some of the concepts of market dynamics. The research recommends that economics teachers should be provided with more structured opportunities to help develop their topic specific pedagogical content knowledge of the school level content as part of their professional development. Keywords: content knowledge, economics teachers, pedagogical content Knowledge, topic specific pedagogical content knowledge, market dynamics.