Testing teacher knowledge for technology teaching in primary schools

Abstract

Today's pupils grow up in a world full of technology. Education's duty is to offer them the opportunity to develop the ability to use, manage, assess, and understand technology in order to `survive' in today's technological society, and to provide them with a comprehensive and realistic concept of technology. Besides, stimulating pupils' natural curiosity for science and technology by offering science and technology education at school, is expected to increase the number of students in the field of science and technology. In the Netherlands, as in other European countries, only a relatively small number of students choose to start a study and career in this field, which is worrying with regard to the pursued development towards a more knowledge-based and technology-intensive economy (expressed in the Lisbon Strategy of the European Council in the year 2000). Although new standards for science and technology education in primary schools have been developed and governmental programmes have been started in the Netherlands since the beginning of this century, science and technology education has not yet a strong and established position in the curriculum of most primary schools and teacher training colleges. Teachers express to be confused about the content and learning activities that belong to science and technology education. Moreover, insufficient expertise of teachers is often mentioned as a restraint to offer science and technology education more regularly. Clearly, primary school teachers need to be trained to improve their knowledge of science and technology teaching. Therefore, teacher training colleges for primary education need to know what knowledge domains to train in order to educate pre-service and in-service teachers effectively. This thesis is specifically focused on technology as part of the learning domain `science and technology education', in the upper grades of primary schools. The general research aim of the presented studies is to investigate three domains of technology-specific teacher knowledge: (1) subject matter knowledge (smk), (2) pedagogical content knowledge (pck), and (3) attitude and self-efficacy (the affective domain). Moreover, the impact of these teacher knowledge domains on pupils' concept of and attitude towards technology is examined. Based on scientific literature, it is assumed that primary school teachers need to have sufficient smk and pck of technology, as well as a positive attitude towards technology and high self-efficacy in teaching technology, in order to stimulate their pupils' development of a realistic and comprehensive concept of technology and a positive attitude towards technology. Because teachers' pck is generally considered to be a central and vital domain of teacher knowledge, a major part of this thesis concerns the measurement and conceptualisation of teachers' pck of technology education. The research questions addressed in this thesis are as follows. 1. What teacher knowledge of technology do primary school teachers have and how are the different domains of teacher knowledge interrelated? 2. To what extent is teacher knowledge of technology related to pupils' concept of and attitude towards technology? 3. How to construct and validate a multiple choice test to measure primary school teachers' pck of technology education? 4. What latent factor structure underlies primary school teachers' pck of technology education? In chapter 2, entitled \Reviewing the relations between teachers' knowledge and pupils' attitude in the field of primary technology education, research questions 1 and 2 are addressed theoretically. Scientific literature on teacher knowledge for science and technology education is thoroughly reviewed with the help of a diagram that specifies the hypothetical relations between the three teacher knowledge domains (smk, pck, and attitude and self-e cacy). Teachers' smk is reported to be an influential knowledge aspect for technology teaching. It is generally assumed that smk is a prerequisite for the development of pck and it is said that smk is positively related to teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in teaching technology. Previous research empirically showed that pck of technology education is associated with enhanced learning of pupils in technology, with increased motivation, and with increased interest in technology. Concerning the relation between teachers' attitude and pupils' it is often intuitively expected that teachers' attitude affects pupils' attitude towards technology, though empirical evidence on this relation is not found. Furthermore, pupils' concept of technology is reported to be strongly related to their attitude towards technology. In chapter 3, entitled \Measuring teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in primary technology education, research question 3 is addressed. The construction and small-scale validation of a multiple choice test to measure primary school teachers' pck of technology the Teaching of Technology Test (ttt), is reported. The `rational' method of test construction proved to be effective and the content validity of the test is approved. However, regarding the production of items, it turned out to be very hard to formulate best answers and plausible distracters. The experts who wrote the items particularly struggled with creating best answer alternatives that needed to reflect a proper blend of smk and pedagogical knowledge. In chapter 4, entitled \Conceptualising pedagogical content knowledge by analysing the latent factor structure of a multiple choice research questions 3 and 4 are addressed. In this chapter, a large scale validation of the ttt and an analysis of the latent factor structure of pck is reported. As was expected from literature on pck in science the test scores correlate significantly with the test scores on smk and self-efficacy. It is therefore concluded that the ttt is also valid in terms of convergent validity. Concerning the reliability of the test, internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) is found to be low, but this can be theoretically explained by the heterogeneous nature of pck. Calculation of test-retest reliability shows that the ttt is satisfactory consistent over time. Although it can be concluded that an important step forward has been made regarding the measurement of pck with a multiple choice test, the ttt is not a ready-to-use instrument yet. With regard to the latent factor structure of teachers' pck of technology, a factor structure of three independent knowledge components is confirmed by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The first factor, labelled knowledge of pupils' general concept and misconceptions related to technology, can be indicated as `knowing how to adjust activities to pupils' experiences of the technological world around them and their (mis)conceptions of technological topics'. The second factor, knowledge of the nature and purpose of technology can be described as `knowing the core characteristics of technology i.e., hands-on experiences and authentic problem solving'. The third factor, knowledge of pedagogical approaches and teaching strategies for technology can be characterised as `the art of asking questions that encourage pupils to think critically about the technological problem encountered'. However, the factor structure turned out to be obscured by many other elements, which supports the idea that pck is a highly heterogeneous construct, consisting of multiple intrinsic elements that are difficult to unravel. In chapter 5, entitled \Analysing teacher knowledge of technology education and its effects on pupils' concept and attitude, research questions 1 and 2 are addressed empirically. From test scores on a content knowledge test and the ttt, it is concluded that primary school teachers have basic levels of smk and pck of technology. Besides, both teachers' self-efficacy in teaching technology and their attitude towards technology are found to be moderately positive. Based on path analysis, it is concluded that smk is an influential factor for pck as well as for self-efficacy beliefs in teaching technology. Subsequently, self-efficacy beliefs are shown to have a strong influence on teachers' attitude towards technology. Furthermore, it is found that all effects of teacher knowledge on pupils' concept and attitude are non-significant, though teachers' pck proved to be the most important of the three teacher knowledge domains in a effecting pupils' concept. Through correlating test scores of individual pupils, it is shown that pupils' concept of technology is weakly, but significantly and positively, related to their attitude towards technology. Based on the findings in this thesis, it is recommended to focus on acquiring and developing smk as well as pck in primary school teacher training. Pre- and in-service teachers should be stimulated to acquire relevant smk and, above all, should be trained to use their smk to foster pupils' learning in technology, i.e., develop their pck. Besides, it would be helpful if the learning domain of science and technology education is defined in more detail. With clearly formulated key learning concepts, learning activities, and standards, teachers could focus more specifically on developing their smk and pck. However, it could be questioned whether it is realistic to presume that all primary school teachers have profound smk and pck of all subjects they teach. Educating more specialist instead of only generalist teachers could also be a way to increase smk and pck. One way or the other, it is highly recommended to ground regular teacher training and special professionalisation programmes on scientific research. But most importantly, science and technology education should first be given higher priority in primary teacher training and primary school curricula.