An Investigation of Turkish Pre-Service Teachers’ Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge

Duygu Cetin-Berber,Ali Erdem

doi:10.3390/computers4030234

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate pre-service teachers’ technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) in Turkey. By using the “Survey of Pre-service Teachers’ Knowledge of Teaching and Technology” developed by Schmidt et al. (2009), the study sought to determine if significant differences could be found in pre-service teachers’ perceptions of TPACK when examined by gender, age, educational program, year of study, kind of instruction (day or night education) and field experience. Regression analysis was also used to examine if technology knowledge (TK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and content knowledge (CK) significantly contributed to pre-service teachers’ TPACK development. Participants of this study were 491 elementary pre-service teachers who attended the summer semester at Pamukkale University. The analysis of the collected data found a significant difference in pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the TPACK when examined across gender, program, year of study and field experience, but no significant differences were found regarding age and kind of instruction. Finally, our regression model showed that CK and PK contributed significantly to pre-service teachers’ TPACK development, but TK was not a significant predictor.

Highlights

As a result of the developments in technology to improve the quality of life, technology has become ubiquitous in every aspect of living
The results showed that there was a significant difference for the technology knowledge (TK) between female (M = 20.767, SD = 3.914) and male (M = 22.623, SD = 4.114) students; t(480) = −4.707, p = 0.000; it did represent a small-sized effect r = 0.21
There was no significant difference between perceptions of female and male students in terms of content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), technological content knowledge (TCK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) or TPACK (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

As a result of the developments in technology to improve the quality of life, technology has become ubiquitous in every aspect of living. Some research showed that the availability of hardware, software and Internet connections continues to increase in schools and colleges, many beginning teachers and pre-service teachers do not have the necessary knowledge or experience to integrate the technology into their instruction [2,3,4,5,6,7,8] In this regard, it is found that knowing how to use technology and using it for individual purposes all the time does not mean that teachers can integrate technology efficiently into their instruction to improve teaching and learning. Technology, pedagogy and content knowledge should be considered all together in teacher education programs

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion