Measuring Action-Related Competences of Mathematics Teachers with Video-Based Items: A Feasibility Study

Recent domain-specific research on teacher cognition has mainly been focusing on teacher knowledge. Usually, a distinction is made between content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. However, a different approach to identifying (domain-) specific professional clusters of competencies is analyzing teaching demands. In this article, we propose an integrated model that is based on both approaches and frames domain-specific teacher cognition in three components: (1) basic knowledge, (2) reflective competences, and (3) action-related competences. We first discuss the methodological difficulties that are related to measuring action-related competences. Thereby, valid assessment items should portray the salient demands of immediacy and spontaneity. Subsequently, in a second step, we present a feasibility study with lower secondary school mathematics teachers. Therefor, we designed video- and computer-based operationalisations for action-related competencies and basic knowledge. The results for in-service (n=28) and pre-service (n=22) teachers show that these two components could be distinguished, although they are, as expected, related.