A Study On Subject-Matter Knowledge And Subject Belief Of Junior Middle School Physical Teacher

Since the 1980s, the research focus about effective teacher has transferred to the paradigm of teachers' knowledge and belief. Studies show that teacher's subject-matter knowledge and subject belief as one aspect of teachers' knowledge play an important role in teaching and teacher's development. Subject-matter knowledge includes three parts: substantive structure, syntactic structure, pragmatic structure. Subject belief is on how teacher understand the subjective matter knowledge, include what the subject is about, what it means to know the subject or to be able to carry out tasks effectively within that subject domain. The purpose of the present research is to studying the subject-matter knowledge and subject belief of teachers in order to find the specific difference between teachers and explore the influence of belief on the subject knowledge application in practice. The result would be valuable for improving teachers' subject-matter knowledge, providing reference for subject-matter knowledge application in teaching and the teacher training.The study includes 15 junior middle school physical teachers, takes the semi structured interview, thinking aloud method and expert-novice paradigm. The results indicate that: 1) Teachers have different level of subject-matter knowledge: expert teachers have extensive subject-matter knowledge, proficient teachers and novice teachers are short of necessary syntactic structure knowledge and pragmatic structure knowledge. 2) Teachers' professional teaching standards are affected by extent of teachers' subject-matter knowledge. Teachers whose own subject-matter knowledge is insufficient could not competent to teaching. 3) Teachers have different subject beliefs: expert teachers have constructivist belief, proficient teachers and novice teachers have instrumentalist belief. 4) Teachers' subject belief will influence their choices in teaching and learning. 5) Development of teachers' subject-matter knowledge will be affected by their subject beliefs.