Out-of-field (OOF) teaching, where teachers are assigned to teach subjects for which they did not receive formal tertiary training, has become a persistent feature of many education systems around the world and has various implications for teachers and students alike. International research consistently links OOF teaching to challenges in content knowledge (CK) (Du Plessis, 2020) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of teachers (Hobbs, 2012a). This, in turn, affects the instructional practices of teachers (Singh et al., 2021), the learning approaches used in the classroom (Carpendale & Hume, 2020), their beliefs (Campbell et al., 2023), as well as the influences of OOF teaching on the teachers’ self-efficacy (Goos & Guerin, 2022) or on their professional identities (Hobbs, 2012b). Far less is known about a professional practice that precedes the instruction itself: lesson planning.

Lesson planning is seen as a central skill of and tool for teachers (Carlson et al., 2019), while being characterized as learnable (Schröder et al., 2020) and subject-specific (Großmann et al., 2025). Consequently, lesson planning is a crucial part of preservice teacher training. However, when such subject-specific learning opportunities are absent from teachers’ initial training, as is the case for most OOF teachers, lesson planning emerges as an impactful aspect for research. This submission addresses this gap by focusing on how OOF physics teachers approach lesson planning for physics classes to generate insights into how these teachers could be supported through targeted professional development.  

Guided by the Model of Educational Reconstruction (MER) (Duit et al., 2012), this submission conceptualizes physics lesson planning as an iterative interplay of the three components of the MER: the clarification and analysis of science content, the research on teaching and learning with an emphasis on learners’ perspectives, including students’ conceptions, as well as the design and evaluation of teaching and learning environments. The MER is rooted in a constructivist view of learning, with a particular emphasis on students’ perspectives and conceptions. Students’ perspectives encompass, for example, their interests, attitudes or skills as well as their conceptions. Students’ conceptions are characterized as everyday interpretations of phenomena that appear meaningful to learners but do not always align with scientific concepts (Driver, 1989). These conceptions are central to instructional quality as the importance of incorporating these conceptions in lesson planning are essential for achieving conceptual change of the students (Aufschnaiter & Rogge, 2021).  

Within this framework this submission employs semi-structured interviews in order to investigate the following research questions:

RQ1: How do out-of-field teachers describe their approach to and experiences with lesson planning in physics?

RQ2: What types of support can be derived to assist out-of-field teachers as part of their professional development, based on how they describe and perceive lesson planning in physics?

By using the MER as an analytical lens, the study contributes to an empirically grounded diagnosis of where lesson planning is constrained for OOF physics teachers and how professional development (PD) and support opportunities might better align with the realities of OOF teachers. Although our study focuses on Austrian OOF physics teachers, the findings offer valuable insights into lesson planning practices and implications for PD internationally, as OOF teaching is an internationally discussed issue.

The study adopts a qualitative design based on semi-structured interviews (Galletta, 2013) with five Austrian OOF physics teachers. Four participants teach at Austrian middle schools (lower secondary grade) and one teaches at an upper secondary vocational school. Teaching experiences range from 1.5 to 15 years while all teachers have taught physics OOF for at least parts of their careers. The interviews were conducted individually in an online setting, which was data-protection-compliant. The interview guide comprised three distinct sections. First participants described their professional backgrounds and their pathways to OOF physics teaching. Second, the main section, explored lesson planning practices using the MER as an organizing framework. To elicit teachers’ planning logic, however, without imposing the framework, participants first described how they would plan a lesson for a content area they had never taught before. Then they reflected their planning processes in relation to the MER with questions concerning the clarification of science content, the inclusion of students’ conceptions and the design of learning environments. For each component they identified particularly challenging aspects of lesson planning and reflected on their overall greatest planning difficulties. Lastly, the interviews addressed professional development needs in physics education, including their views as well as their wishes for professional development programs and opportunities. The interviews were then transcribed and analyzed using Thematic Reflexive Analysis as outlined by Braun and Clarke (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2021). This qualitative method involves identifying and interpreting recurring patterns of shared meaning, referred to as themes. It enables an in-depth exploration of practices and experiences and provides nuanced insights into the challenges faced by the participants as well as potential support measures. It also allows researchers to draw on the theoretical framework that best aligns with the analytic aims. Accordingly, the MER was adopted as the guiding lens for data interpretation, enabling deductive coding informed by the MER alongside an inductive refinement. Following Braun and Clarke’s iterative process, the author first familiarized himself with the data, generated initial codes and developed preliminary themes. These were refined and discussed with two additional researchers to sharpen the themes, resulting in the final set of themes reported in this submission.

The findings are organized into five themes that illuminate OOF teachers’ planning practices and implications for PD. Themes T1-T3 address RQ1 (the planning process) and T4-T5 address RQ2 (support needs and PD implications). T1 portrays limited physics content knowledge as a surmountable, yet highly time-consuming challenge. A large share of planning time is devoted to clarifying physics content for the teachers themselves. At the same time, teachers struggle with elementarization of science content. T2 concerns the consideration of learners’ perspectives, which remained superficial. The teachers report attending to students’ interests and prior knowledge, but describe proactive planning for students’ conceptions as impractical or impossible. This raises the question of whether OOF teachers are familiar with the concept of students’ conceptions in the first place. T3 shows that lesson structuring and the design of learning environments heavily relies on already existing materials and the input of in-field colleagues. Explicit engagement with research-informed physics education concepts is largely absent and sometimes rejected. Themes T4 and T5 specify support needs based on the teachers’ experiences and their wishes. T4 highlights the central role of informal networks, especially with in-field colleagues, for obtaining materials and ideas. In contrast, content clarification is mostly handled individually, generating a demand for trustworthy digital resources tailored to school-level physics. T5 indicates clear interest in targeted PD that combines physics content input with practical teaching approaches. However, participation is constrained by time pressure, low visibility of existing offers and skepticism toward PD programs. Overall, the findings show that OOF physics lesson planning poses substantial but improvable challenges. Targeted PD aligned with teachers’ needs could strengthen planning quality, particularly regarding uncertainties around students’ conceptions. Deeper insights into studies’ design and results would be presented and discussed at the conference, if accepted.

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