New Perspectives in Science Education

The overall objective of the present work was to characterize the initial pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of twenty-one prospective physics teachers about Archimedes’ principle, as part of physics teachers' professional training program in Colombia. To capture the PCK, prospective physics teachers complete the content representation matrix (CoRe). For categories, we were taken as referents: orientation towards science teaching, knowledge about the curriculum, knowledge about pupils' understanding of science, knowledge of assessment in science, and knowledge of instructional strategies.  These categories were grouped into two basic tendencies – traditional teacher-centred and pupil-centred or innovative tendency– plus an intermediate tendency. The results indicate a low knowledge of the content, prospective physics teacher consider that the buoyancy depends on the position of the submerged object. On the other hand, 57% of prospective physics teachers opt for a PCK close to an intermediate tendency towards teaching-learning, 24% describe an eclectic PCK and 19% describe a PCK closed on a traditional trend. Finally, PCK models are related to the degree of importance and confidence that the future teachers perceive on their own knowledge for the teaching of the Archimedes’ principle.