Abstract
This thesis explores the potential for this educative curriculum to improve the PCK of teachers of science in the middle school years in rural and remote settings. It does this by employing a Type IV multiple-case, embedded mixed-methods design (Yin, 2014) over two phases in two states of Australia collecting a range of data from four remote sites in Western Australia and four rural sites in Victoria. Participants comprised 12 teachers, four principals, four teaching principals, one Science KLA Consultant, one Cluster Coordinator and over 200 students. Data were gathered from interviews; archival records; researcher direct observations; an astronomy diagnostic test; student artifacts; and school based documents. A framework, developed from the works of Davis & Krajcik (2005), Kind (2009b) and Magnusson et al. (1999), is used to analyse the data for evidence of changes in teachers’ science PCK.
