The TPACK Level of Preschool Trainees: A Quan-qual Mixed Method among Three Chinese Colleges in Hunan

Abstract

The objective of this study is to explore the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) level and related influencing factors of preschool trainees in three Chinese colleges, located in different cities in Hunan Province. In this paper, the author employed a mixed method to get research data. The sample of this study consists of 383 preschool trainees (final-year students from three colleges in Hunan, China), who will be future preschool teachers, majoring in the Preschool Education, and the Early Children Development and Health Management. The researcher used online questionnaire to investigate the trainees’ TPACK and the related influencing factors. The data was analyzed using one way ANOVA and the correlation test. Focus-group interview with semi-structured questions also applied in this research to get detailed information from 4 trainees. The findings clearly indicate that there is no significant differences in the mean score for the preschool trainees’ overall TPACK application level between different colleges in Hunan. And trainees’ Technological Knowledge (TK) and Content Knowledge (CK) are significantly correlated with their TPACK. The qualitative findings indicated that trainees required more practice and training in the technology courses. These findings have strong practical implication on teachers’ training colleges that they need to provide more technological training to future trainees in their curriculum.