Secondary students' perceptions of their teachers' pedagogical content knowledge: a scale development study

Students' perceptions are one of the sources that can be used to capture teachers' PCK. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a scale to determine secondary students' perceptions of their teachers' PCK. Validity and reliability studies were conducted with 659 students. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were done. The scale named secondary school students' perceptions of their teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (SPTPCK) scale has two parts. The first part includes four factors containing perceptions about knowledge of students, knowledge of curriculum, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment. These factors explain 59.340% of the total variance. The second part includes four factors containing perceptions about student-centered, academic rigor, examination-centered and didactic orientations. These factors explain 63.059% of the total variance. The analyses show that the scale is statistically valid and reliable and can be used for examining students' perceptions of their teachers' PCK.