Development and validation of an instrument for measuring Chinese chemistry teachers’ perceptions of pedagogical content knowledge for teaching chemistry core competencies Peng He, * ab Changlong Zheng* a and Tingting Li bcd This study aims to develop and validate a new instrument for measuring chemistry teachers’ perceptions of Pedagogical Content Knowledge for teaching Chemistry Core Competencies (PCK_CCC) in the context of new Chinese chemistry curriculum reform. The five constructs and the initial 17 items in the new instrument were contextualized by the PCK pentagon model (Park S. and Oliver J. S., (2008), J. Res. Sci. Teach., 45(7), 812–834.) with the notions of the Senior High School Chemistry Curriculum Standards (Ministry of Education, P. R. China, 2017). 210 chemistry teachers from a University-Government-School initiative voluntarily participated in this study. The findings from item analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis provide sufficient empirical evidence to support the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument. The concurrent validity of the instrument was confirmed by testing mean differences among teacher demographic groups. The high Cronbach’s coefficient alpha values show good internal consistency reliability of the instrument. Integrating the evidence from theory and data, we documented a valid and reliable PCK_CCC instrument with five constructs consisting of 16 items. This study provides a thorough process for developing and validating instruments that address teacher perceptions of their PCK in a particular subject domain. The valid and reliable PCK_CCC instrument would be beneficial for teacher education researchers and teacher professional programs. Introduction Knowledge is growing exponentially as technology continually transforms the way we live and work (NRC, 2011). It demands new work practices and new competencies, which are also referred to as ‘‘21st century skills’’ (Bybee and Fuchs, 2006; Trilling and Fadel, 2009; Binkley et al., 2012; Griffin and Care, 2014). Incorporated with that, international organizations and institutions, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have established a variety of core competency frameworks (OECD, 2005; European Parliament, 2007; Ananiadou and Claro, 2009; Partnership for 21st-century skills, 2009). The frameworks affect K-12 school curriculum reform significantly in many countries around the world. To catch up with the international tendency of the world, the central government of China has released several milestone documents (The State Council of P. R. China, 2006a, 2006b; Ministry of Science and Technology and Publicity Department, 2016) that take the notion of core competencies as a focal point in its curriculum reform (Wei, 2019). Based on the notion, the 2017 Senior High School Chemistry Curriculum Standards were released (hereafter denoted as the 2017 SHSCCS). The fundamental purpose of the 2017 SHSCCS aims to cultivate students’ core competencies in secondary school chemistry, which are called Chemistry Core Competencies (CCCs). As the 2017 SHSCCS was released, how to teach CCCs became a big challenge for both in- service and pre-service chemistry teachers in China. Numerous studies have shown that teacher professional knowledge positively affects instructional quality and student learning (Hill et al., 2005; Baumert et al., 2010; Park et al., 2011; Heller et al., 2012; Keller et al., 2017). In particular, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Shulman, 1986) has been proposed as an essential aspect of teachers’ knowledge (Alonzo et al., 2012) and is widely considered crucial for a teacher’s ability to create high-quality instruction. PCK and its components are useful for researchers to study teacher knowl- edge and practice and have a significant role in defining capable and competent teachers (Toh et al., 2006; van Driel and Berry, 2012; Kulgemeyer and Riese, 2018). Thus, it is essential to assess Cite this: DOI: 10.1039/c9rp00286c a Institute of Chemical Education, Northeast Normal University, P. R. China. E-mail: hep905@nenu.edu.cn, zhengcl@nenu.edu.cn b CREATE for STEM Institute, Michigan State University, USA c Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, P. R. China d Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education, Michigan State University, USA Received 16th December 2019, Accepted 8th January 2021 DOI: 10.1039/c9rp00286c rsc.li/cerp This journal is The Royal Society of Chemistry 2021 Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. Chemistry Education Research and Practice PAPER Published on 12 January 2021. Downloaded on 2/24/2021 2:11:24 PM. View Article Online View Journal