An Empirical Investigation of Taiwanese Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge in an Initiative to Adopt Digitization during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a new opportunity to accelerate the integration of digital and information technology with the concept of technology teaching content knowledge (TPACK) in education. The Ministry of Education of Taiwan has introduced the digitization of humanities and social sciences (H&SS) courses since 2017, and 189 projects in three categories have been chosen and subsidized by 2022. This study coded and categorized the curriculum content of these projects in accordance with the TPACK framework and used data mining techniques to investigate the TPACK of teachers involved in the implementation of these subsidized digital H&SS courses. By counting technical knowledge (TK), content-knowledge (CK), and technology-content-pedagogy knowledge (TCPK) in digital H&SS courses, we show that before the pandemic, humanities courses emphasized digital technology content with pedagogy (TCP), pedagogy (P), and technology with content (TC), while during the pandemic they focused more on content (C). Social sciences courses shifted from stressing technological pedagogy (TP) and C before the pandemic to increased emphasis on TC during the pandemic. Overall, teachers prioritized P, TCP, and TC across disciplines. Additional findings include differences in TPACK focus between fields, thorough TPACK descriptions in social sciences courses, and emphasis on technology (T) in scientific methods courses both before and during the pandemic. Analysis of P, TC, and TCP topics revealed gaps in skills and technology-specific pedagogy, thus shedding light on the strategies for developing digital teaching competencies of university teachers and how to develop them. The study also provides recommendations for future implementation of digital H&SS programs.