Biology Teacher's Pedagogical and Content Knowledge in Ondo State Secondary Schools: An Empirical Review

Abstract

Most educational scholars and teacher educators acknowledge the fact that subject matter and pedagogical knowledge are crucial to good teaching. Pedagogical and content knowledge are some of the important educational constructs that any effective teacher should adequately possess to improve students' academic performance because it guides the teachers' activities when dealing with subject matter in the classroom. Students' performance in both internal and external examinations is dependent on teachers' quality which in turn is determined by teachers' possession of pedagogical and content knowledge. In spite of the importance of teacher's quality and characteristics, performance at senior secondary school level has been below average. This empirical study therefore assessed the level of Biology teacher's pedagogical and content knowledge in Ondo State. 171 Biology teachers were observed during the teaching and learning process and a checklist/rating scale consisting of 23 items on teachers' pedagogical and content knowledge observable traits that are expected to be exhibited by the teachers during teaching and learning process. Also 5 multi-choice questions in Biology were given to the students in order to further assess the level of Biology teachers' content knowledge. Findings revealed that 52.1% of Biology teachers had a good level of pedagogical knowledgewhile49.1%had a good level of content knowledge. The study concluded that teachers in Ondo State Secondary Schools exhibited a good level of pedagogical and content knowledge in teaching Biology.