A core element of teacherss' professional knowledge is their Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). The Refined Consensus Model of PCK defines three realms of PCK: collective PCK, personal PCK and enacted PCK. ePCK encompasses the acts of planning and reflecting on a lesson. Digital simulations allow the training of transferring pPCK to ePCK in…

Scientific reasoning competencies (SRC) are one part of science teachers' professional competencies. This study examines the contribution of three factors to the development of pre-service science teachers' SRC: the "amount of science education classes," the "amount of science classes" and the pre-service science teachers'…

In this paper the development, use, and evaluation of tasks based on the construct of school-related content knowledge are described. The tasks were used in seminars on organic chemistry for bachelor and master preservice chemistry teachers at a German university. For the evaluation a questionnaire with open and closed items was used. The tasks…

The process of reflection is assumed to be important for developing professional knowledge through practical experience in science teaching. However, this claim requires more evidence, based on a clear definition of reflection. The main goal of the present study is to explore how reflection skills influence the development of professional…

With regard to current controversial public discussions about the credibility of scientific knowledge, it seems particularly important that students possess adequate ideas about the tentativeness of scientific knowledge, which is a key aspect of nature of science. However, international studies show that many pre-service science teachers tend to…

Evaluating and improving instructional quality is important in pre-service teacher education, given it is a crucial factor for students' learning gains. This process is complex and involves multiple classroom events with various interpretations. Criteria for instructional quality are rarely applied systematically in teacher education, leading to…

The present study analyzed the structural and the content complexity of 76 preservice science teachers' socioscientific argumentation in the context of a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination. Data were analyzed within the methodological frame of qualitative content analysis. Concerning the structural complexity, the participants' socioscientific…

Evolution understanding is often positively connected with magnitudes of evolution acceptance, whereas religiosity mostly interferes negatively. However, comparisons between studies and countries must be treated cautiously due to the diversity of used instruments and samples. This study aims to generate new evidence concerning the interplay of…

Professional teaching competence is significantly influenced by beliefs about teaching and learning. Prospective teachers start their teacher training with quite persistent beliefs about learning processes. These beliefs are mainly influenced by the way they experienced their own lessons as a student at school. Previous biology lessons at school…

Diagnosing is an important aspect of teachers' professional competence. To successfully diagnose classroom situations, one has to apply pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in diagnostic activities (DA). Simulated classroom situations with embedded scaffolding can be an effective way of practising skills needed to foster diagnostic competences. In…

Biodiversity issues can fruitfully be adopted as contexts of Education for Sustainable Development, as they involve ecological, economic and social dimensions. But as these contexts are demanding to teach, we need to know more about motivational factors to determine how teacher education should be conducted to lead to motivated teachers. To study…

To meet the requirements of students' cooperative learning, our quasi-experimental study addresses how preservice teachers (PSTs), as a component of their procedural pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), might develop more adequate tutor-student interactions during students' experimentation. Applying the assignment-assistance tutoring model, we…

This Special Issue aims to present evidence about the relationships between content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); the development of these types of knowledge in novice and experienced secondary science teachers; and how CK, PK and/or PCK impact students' learning. Since Shulman's introduction…

Over the past decades, a large body of research has examined students' magnitudes of evolution acceptance and related measurement issues resulting in questions concerning instruments' validity and operationalization. Until now, several studies investigated validity aspects of often-used evolution acceptance instruments and came to diverging…

Establishing nuanced interpretations of student thinking is central to formative assessment but difficult, especially for preservice teachers. Learning progressions (LPs) have been proposed as a framework for promoting interpretations of students' thinking; however, research is needed to investigate whether and how an LP can be used to support…