Teacher education in the fields of German and mathematics: Facets of pedagogical content knowledge from an interdisciplinary perspective

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study in which two newly developed pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) assessment tools in the fields of German and mathematics were used. In these instruments, preservice teachers (27 in German, 40 in mathematics) were presented with exemplary tasks for school students and with authentic student responses. Preservice teachers were asked to name the requirements of the tasks, to assess the quality of students’ answers and to formulate feedback to the students (i.e. preservice teachers dealt with authentic problems that are pivotal in the field of teaching). The data collected in the study were analysed from an interdisciplinary perspective. Findings showed that preservice teachers of both subjects followed comparable strategies for complexity reduction and encountered transfer problems. Interdisciplinary conclusions can be drawn for the design of learning environments in teacher education.