On the difficulties of master's students with German as a subject in using professional knowledge within a school situation

Abstract

This study examines the amount of literary-historical knowledge available to master's students of German (n = 33) and the use of this knowledge, as well as pedagogical content (PCK) and general pedagogical knowledge (GPK), in a school-based action situation. The amount of literary historical knowledge was measured with a knowledge test. Situational knowledge use was determined by a lesson planning vignette that focused on the topic of epochs in literature. Students' comments on the vignette were coded as to whether they related to content knowledge (CK), PCK, or GPK. Master's students mainly used GPK and hardly any CK in the tested school-based action situation. At the same time, they had very little knowledge of literary history. However, unlike in a sample of bachelor's students (n = 63), the literary historical knowledge of master's students controlled the use of knowledge in lesson planning to a significant degree. To conclude this article, we briefly discuss the results by considering different forms of university-based knowledge transmission.