Preservice History Teachers’ Perceptions of Subject Matter Competency

Abstract

Teachers should be able to understand conceptual constructs, viewpoints, and principles related to their field and organize teaching process accordingly. This is valid also for history teachers. They are expected to comprehend the basic conceptions related to subject areas and reflect them on classroom practices. The association between subject matter and pedagogy is significant for the quality of teaching. The drawbacks in content knowledge cause deficiencies in learning and a tendency to handle subjects in a similar manner. The aim of this study was to investigate preservice history teachers’ perceptions of content knowledge in terms of different variables. Within this scope, Scale of Perceived Competence in History as a Subject Matter was used as the data collection tool. The participants were composed of 305 preservice history teachers receiving pedagogical formation education at 3 different universities in Turkey during 2016-2017 academic year. In this study, it was investigated whether participants’ perceptions of subject matter competency differed in terms of gender, graduation high school, order and reason of choosing the program studied, city of program studied, and general academic average.