Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers Leading to Continual Improvement

Abstract

The Department of Education recently underwent curricular revamp from kindergarten to senior high school which paved the way to the inclusion of statistics and probability. In effect, the K to 12 curriculum posted a challenge on the ability of the future teachers in handling the additional content area. Hence, the pedagogical content knowledge of the thirty-nine pre-service teachers was explored. Concurrent triangulation mixed method design which is a combination of descriptive-comparative and multiple-case study methods was employed in the study. Data were gathered using pedagogical content knowledge test, interview, and lesson plans from thirty-nine pre-service teachers. The results revealed that the pre-service teachers had strong pedagogical content knowledge for teaching fundamental counting techniques and combinatorics but their pedagogical content knowledge for teaching inferential statistics, measures of variability, and measures of central tendency should be developed further. Thus, tertiary level institutions should strengthen the pedagogical content knowledge through focusing the instruction more on developing the conceptual understanding and in checking the misconceptions of the pre-service teachers, applying constructivist perspectives in pre-service teacher education, and integrating pedagogical content knowledge in the different subjects in the new mathematics curriculum for tertiary education.