Investigation of Content Validity and Exploratory Factor Analysis of Students’ Pedagogical Knowledge of Science

This study aims to enhance the pedagogical knowledge of science among pre-service teachers in Elementary School Teacher Education (ESTE) and identify the factors influencing their understanding of scientific concepts. We employed Cohen’s Kappa coefficient to assess inter-rater reliability for the evaluation tools, alongside exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to uncover latent constructs related to Pedagogical Knowledge of Science (PKS) with a sample size of 989 pre-service science teachers in Elementary School Teacher Education (ESTE). questionnaire is designed to measure various dimensions of their pedagogical content knowledge. The findings indicate that Cohen’s Kappa coefficient demonstrated strong reliability at 0.8 across multiple items in the assessment tool, suggesting consistent agreement between raters. Furthermore, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed an excellent model fit. PKS has 3 domains, namely Pedagogy of Science Curriculum (PoSC), Pedagogy of Science Instructional Strategies (PoSIS), and Pedagogy of Learner and Learning (PoLL). These results underscore the importance of reliable assessment tools in evaluating teacher competencies in science education. The identified factors can inform curriculum development for teacher preparation programs by emphasizing areas where future educators may require additional support or training, ultimately enhancing educational outcomes in science classrooms.