The teaching of Doppler Effect at Grade 12- teacher's content knowledge

Abstract

This paper investigates an experienced high school science teacher's content knowledge for teaching Doppler Effect to Grade 12 learners. The topic is new in the physical science National Curriculum Statement and therefore posing some difficulties for teachers when teaching. The aim of this paper is to investigate the content knowledge that the teacher has in order to teach this unfamiliar topic. A research question about what content knowledge for teaching does an experienced teacher possess is answered in this paper. A teacher was interviewed and observed when teaching. A concept map was then constructed based on what was taught. The concept map was then given to different experts for validation of the content before the analysis. Quantitative analysis using the constructs of correctness, connectedness and complexity was then applied and the qualitative analysis was done based on the actual details on the map. In terms of correctness, the findings revealed that the teacher showed a good understanding of Doppler Effect. However, there were some few incorrect links that contributed to the score. There were also only four cross links made by the teacher from his teaching which affected connectedness of the map and hence his conceptual understanding of the topic.