Modeling primary school pre-service teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) for meaningful learning with information and communication technology (ICT)
Introduction
Personal computers have become more readily available in the classrooms of many developed countries but teachers’ use of ICT continues to be criticized; it has been widely cited that teachers have been using ICT infrequently and when used, it is for information transmission rather than the facilitation of students’ knowledge construction (Gao et al., 2009, Harris et al., 2009, Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2010, Sang et al., 2010). These observations have led to more emphasis on teaching teachers the ways of integrating ICT in teaching (Angeli and Valanides, 2009, Goktas et al., 2009, Polly and Brantley-Dias, 2009).
Building on Shulman’s (1986) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) framework, one framework that has gained much attention recently is the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Angeli and Valanides, 2005, Mishra and Koehler, 2006). TPACK has been regarded as a potentially fruitful framework that may provide new directions for teacher educators in solving the problems associated with integrating ICT into classroom teaching and learning (Hewitt, 2008). The authors’ recent search of online databases (including Education Research Complete; ERIC; Computer Source and PsyInfo) indicates that 56 peer reviewed journal articles related to the search term “technological pedagogical content knowledge” have been published since 2005. In addition, a handbook on TPACK containing 13 chapters documenting attempts in utilizing the TPACK framework for different subject matter has also been published (AACTE, 2008). Extant research employing the TPACK as a design framework to structure ICT courses have also documented some positive effects on teachers’ capability to integrate ICT (see AACTE, 2008, Angeli and Valanides, 2009, Chai et al., 2010).
Mishra and Koehler (2006) contend that for teachers to integrate ICT in their teaching, their technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge should be synthesized to form TPACK. Mishra and Koehler (2006) postulate that three other sources of knowledge can also be derived from the interactions among technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and content knowledge, namely: (a) Technological Content Knowledge; (b) Technological Pedagogical Knowledge; and (c) Shulman’s (1986) Pedagogical Content Knowledge. These seven constructs capture the different types of teachers’ professional expertise needed for effective technology integration. For the ease of comprehension, based on previous literature (Cox and Graham, 2009, Mishra and Koehler, 2006, Shulman, 1986), the seven constructs are explained succinctly below:
- a)
Technological Knowledge (TK) – knowledge of how to operate computers and relevant software.
- b)
Pedagogical Knowledge (PK) – knowledge of how to plan instruction, deliver lessons, manage students and address individual differences.
- c)
Content Knowledge (CK) – subject matter knowledge such as knowledge about languages, Mathematics, Sciences etc.
- d)
Technological Content Knowledge (TCK) – knowledge of how content can be researched or represented by technology such as using computer simulation to represent and study movement of the earth crust.
- e)
Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) – knowledge of “the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others” (Shulman, 1986, p. 9).
- f)
Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) – knowledge of how technology can facilitate pedagogical approaches such as using asynchronous discussion forum to support social construction of knowledge.
- g)
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) – knowledge of facilitating students’ learning of a specific content through appropriate pedagogy and technology.
The TPACK framework has been embraced as a theoretical basis for structuring ICT curriculum in teacher education programs (Angeli & Valanides, 2009) which gives rise to the need for robust TPACK survey instruments to support the measurement of teachers’ development during program evaluation (Schmidt et al., 2009). Several TPACK surveys have since been designed and those that have been validated through exploratory or confirmatory factor analyses with large sample respondents generically report difficulty with isolating all seven constructs proposed by Mishra and Koehler (2006) (see Archambault and Barnett, 2010, Koh et al., 2010, Lee and Tsai, 2010). The first gap in research pertaining to the TPACK framework that this paper aims to contribute is to further the work in factor analyses. In a previous TPACK survey validation study conducted with Singapore pre-service teachers, Koh et al. (2010) conducted a factor analysis of a TPACK survey whose items were adapted from Schmidt et al. (2009) with slight modification to suit the context Singapore pre-service teachers. They conjectured that TPACK surveys that are more contextualized could yield better factor structure. This study includes survey items that are contextualized to the pedagogical emphases of the ICT course designed for the Singaporean pre-service teachers. The results could provide support to their suggestion, thereby informing future work of constructing TPACK surveys.
In response to Koh et al.’s (2010) study, this paper also addresses a second gap in extant TPACK research; that is, there is a lack of understanding about the relationships amongst the seven TPACK constructs during teachers’ TPACK development process. In our study, we extended the factor analysis of the TPACK survey to build structural equation models of Singapore pre-service teachers’ TPACK development by examining the structural relationships among the constructs of TPACK before and after the course. The relationships among the seven TPACK constructs have not yet been examined statistically through structural equation models which can clarify the relative influence of TK, PK, and CK on TPACK. The comparison between the pre and post-course models generated can offer further insights as to how the relationships between the seven constructs may evolve structurally. Such statistical models can be used to inform the design of ICT curriculum in teacher education institutions and professional development for practicing teachers.
Section snippets
The validation of TPACK surveys
Teacher educators generally acknowledge the need to develop valid and reliable instruments to assess teachers’ TPACK (Mishra and Koehler, 2006, Schmidt et al., 2009). Efforts to construct surveys for this purpose began with Koehler and Mishra (2005a). They constructed a 14 items survey to chart 12 graduate students’ developmental trajectories as these teachers were engaged in designing ICT integrated lesson. Koehler and Mishra (2005b) reported another study involving 4 faculty and 13 students
Study participants
The participants for our study were 834 pre-service teachers training to be primary school teachers at a teachers’ college in Singapore. They were attending a core ICT module during the semester of July 2009 and they were invited to participate in this research. In the beginning of the semester, an e-mail explaining the purpose of this study and an invitation for voluntary participation was sent to these pre-service teachers through their ICT tutors during the first week of the semester. A link
Factor analyses of TPACK survey
The EFA yielded 5 factors for the pre-course survey with all factors having high Cronbach alphas (Table 1, TK = .90, PKML = .91, CK = .91, TPK = .86, TPACK = .95). The new items for TK loaded within its original construct. Furthermore, the EFA resulted in the loss of two scales namely the TCK and PCK. Only one item from TCK loaded into the TPACK factor and it was therefore considered as an item of TPACK. By CFA analysis, the five-factor model yields satisfactory model fit for the pre-course
Conclusion
This research attests that the TPACK framework is indeed a generative framework that can continue to guide course design and evaluation for pre-service teachers’ preparation to integrate ICT into classrooms teaching and learning. Employing this framework, teacher educators can build on the various studies to adapt and contextualize survey items according to the focus of their courses. They can then explore pre-service teachers’ understanding of the seven basic TPACK constructs and adjust the
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