Patterns and pathways of teacher PCK development: a qualitative case study in translation education

Abstract

Translation education lacks empirical research on how teachers develop pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). This qualitative multi-case study investigates the initial PCK and its development in three Chinese translation teachers — two academic instructors and one translator teacher — using a framework integrating Shulman’s (1986, 1987) PCK, Chen’s (2009, 2011) practical knowledge development model, and Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) SECI model. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, student interviews, and questionnaires. Three findings emerged. First, all three teachers lacked adequate PCK at the outset, primarily due to inadequate disciplinary expertise. Second, their PCK growths exhibited three patterns: learning holistically from an expert model (socialization), restructuring teaching by drawing on pedagogical theory (combination plus internalization), and deriving pedagogical change from deepened subject matter understanding (externalization, combination and internalization). Third, while all three endeavored to enhance disciplinary expertise, the academic instructors appeared to approach PCK development from a pedagogical perspective, whereas the sole translator teacher in this study approached it from a subject matter standpoint — an individual-level observation that cannot be taken as representative of all practitioner-turned-teachers. Drawing on these three empirically grounded patterns as its evidential foundation, and extending them through the combinatorial logic of SECI conversion modes, the study tentatively proposes a six-pattern exploratory framework for translation teachers’ PCK development. Only three of the six patterns are directly grounded in the present data; the remaining three are provisional hypotheses that require independent empirical verification before any generalization can be made.