Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, curriculum designing, and student’s comprehension of secondary school ordinary level physics in Lusaka, Zambia

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyse teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and curriculum designing of secondary school ordinary level (O-level) physics in order to establish if they contributed to learners’ poor comprehension of physics. The embedded mixed methods research design was used with more of qualitative data than quantitative data informing the study. 172 participants comprising of 158 Grade 12 learners, 10 teachers of physics and 4 physics educational specialists were sampled for the study. Data was collected using questionnaires for learners, semistructured interview schedules for teachers and educational specialists and a lesson observation guide. Thematic analysis aided the understanding of qualitative data while descriptive statistics were used to analyse quantitative data. Findings revealed that O-level Physics for secondary school in Zambia had some areas that affected Learners’ comprehension due to the way the programme was designed. However, the major hindrance to Learners’’ poor comprehension of the subject was teacher pedagogical content knowledge. Thus, it was concluded that teachers’ poor physics pedagogical content knowledge and numerous skills acquisition demands that the subject put on learners contributed to Learners’ difficulties in comprehending the subject. Therefore, researchers in this study recommended that the Ministry of General Education in Zambia should come up with a deliberate professional development programme to up skill teachers in the teaching of physics from both the theoretical and practical points of view.