Developing effective knowledge-building environments through constructivist teaching beliefs and technology-integration knowledge: A survey of middle-school teachers in northern Taiwan

Abstract

The creation of effective knowledge-building environments (KBEs) to help learners develop essential skills in a knowledge society has gradually been recognized as an important goal in education (see the review by Chen & Hong, 2016), but the qualities that teachers require to develop KBEs remain to be investigated. Drawing on a review of relevant literature, we hypothesized that constructivist teaching beliefs (CTBs) and technology-integration knowledge (TIK) would prove important determinants of teachers' potential to develop KBEs. The main aim of this study was to test a structural equation model encompassing teachers' CTBs and TIK, and determine whether these variables were reliable predictors of teachers' potential to develop KBEs. A convenience sample of 390 middle-school teachers was selected from northern Taiwan for this survey study. Our results allowed us to construct a path model and indicate that CTBs, which are positively mediated by TIK, facilitate teachers' potential to develop KBEs. The implications for teacher training are discussed.