The Influence of Teachers’ Knowledge on Student Learning in Middle School Physical Science Classrooms

TLDR

The study investigates how middle school physical science teachers’ knowledge affects learning outcomes of 9,556 students. Teachers and students completed repeated assessments aligned with the National Science Education Standards, using 20 shared items. Teachers who recognized common misconceptions achieved significantly greater student gains, especially on items with popular wrong answers, while subject‑matter knowledge alone drove gains on misconception‑free items, indicating that identifying students’ typical errors is an important component of science teacher competence.

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between teacher knowledge and student learning for 9,556 students of 181 middle school physical science teachers. Assessment instruments based on the National Science Education Standards with 20 items in common were administered several times during the school year to both students and their teachers. For items that had a very popular wrong answer, the teachers who could identify this misconception had larger classroom gains, much larger than if the teachers knew only the correct answer. On items on which students did not exhibit misconceptions, teacher subject matter knowledge alone accounted for higher student gains. This finding suggests that a teacher’s ability to identify students’ most common wrong answer on multiple-choice items, a form of pedagogical content knowledge, is an additional measure of science teacher competence.