Unpacking the sources of computer science teaching efficacy in in-service elementary teachers

The research investigates and compares pedagogical content knowledge of pre-service and in-service elementary school teachers in mathematics. The study used a quantitative method design, and the participants were 96 pre-service teachers and 80 in-service elementary school teachers. The data collected by questionnaires using 5-point Likers scala consists of content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. The data is analyzed using a one-way ANOVA and MANOVA. The results showed that pre-service and in-service teachers showed higher levels of pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers in services scored higher in pedagogical content knowledge than pre-service teachers significantly. In-service teachers have higher scores in each of the components. Pre-service teachers have higher scores in pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge except for content knowledge. Teacher educators need to pay attention to increased pre-service content knowledge and activating pre￾service teachers in elementary school as co-teacher. In-service teachers can improve their skills through educational seminars and webinars online that do not interfere with teaching time.

ABSTRACTTeachers’ professional development (PD) receives a great deal of attention in current educational settings. However, research has shown that many teachers hesitate to attend PD programs. In this study, data were collected from 270 elementary school teachers and were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to examine their intention to attend the weekly PD programs on Wednesday afternoons (PDWAP). The results revealed that the participants value the acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) more than they value pedagogical knowledge (PK) and content knowledge (CK) because of the expected usefulness of each for teaching. Moreover, the results of this study have implications for PD program design, and call for a stronger focus on PCK.AbbreviationAdjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI); Analysis of Moment Structures(AMOS); average variance (AVE); Chi-square(); content knowledge (CK); continuing professional development (CPD); Comparative Fit Index (CFI); degree of freedom (df); expectancy-value theory (EVT); Goodness of Fit Index (GFI); Incremental Fit Index (IFI); Mean(M); Parsimonious Goodness of Fit Index (PGFI); Parsimonious Normed Fit Index (PNFI); Parsimonious comparative-fit-index (PCFI); pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); pedagogical knowledge (PK); professional development (PD); professional development programs on Wednesday afternoons (PDWAP); Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA); standard deviation (SD); structural equation modeling (SEM); square of multiple correlation coefficients (R2); Teaching Beliefs Survey (TBS); theory of planned behavior (TPB); Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI); United Kingdom (UK)

Stage 1: Survival During Stage 1, which may last throughout the first full year of teaching, the teacher's main concern is whether she can survive. This preoccupation with survival may be expressed in questions the teacher asks: "Can I get through the day in one piece? Without losing a child? Can I make it until the end of the week? Until the next vacation? Can I really do this kind of work day after day? Will I be accepted by my colleagues?" Such questions are well expressed in Ryan's enlightening collection of accounts of first-year teaching experiences (3).

German pre-service teacher education aims to foster the concurrent formation of content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Accordingly, the coordination, sequencing, and prioritization of learning opportunities for the three areas of professional knowledge represent vital issues of the organization of teacher education at German universities. In this context, reanalyzing selected data of a previous experiment, we examined effects of instruction on pedagogical content knowledge about fractions in sixth-grade mathematics on the formation of corresponding content knowledge and generic pedagogical knowledge. Totaling 59 pre-service elementary school teachers, three groups had received seven hours of intervention on either content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, or pedagogical content knowledge. Analyses of video recordings, ratings of treatment quality, and tests of professional knowledge revealed strong internal validity of the data. We found small effects of instruction on pedagogical content knowledge on the formation of both content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. However, contrary to our expectations, effects on pedagogical knowledge were more consistent and statistically robust than effects on content knowledge. For the development of pedagogical knowledge in teacher education, this finding highlights the potential of parallel or integrated coursework, in which pre-service teachers use specific instructional strategies and student conceptions as examples to derive generic principles of teaching and learning.

Pedagogical content knowledge forms the core of teachers’ professional knowledge; it refers to knowledge about making subject matter accessible to students. Thus, the formation of pedagogical content knowledge constitutes a crucial issue for educational research and practice. We investigated the contributions of content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge to the formation of pedagogical content knowledge about fractions and fractional arithmetic in 6th grade mathematics in a between-participants study with 100 German preservice teachers. The three experimental and two control groups received 7 hr of intervention spread out over two days. We assessed participants’ pedagogical content knowledge before intervention, between the two days, after intervention, as well as at 6-week follow-up. The control groups exclusively received instruction on either pedagogical knowledge or pedagogical content knowledge; each of the experimental groups embodied a specific hypothesis about the formation of pedagogical content knowledge. Providing support for a mechanism of amalgamation, a combination of instruction on content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge produced small but statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. Similarly, instruction on content knowledge exclusively was sufficient to cause small but statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. Prior instruction on content knowledge did not facilitate learning from instruction on pedagogical content knowledge. Nevertheless, direct instruction on pedagogical content knowledge caused medium and statistically significant growth in pedagogical content knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) has been considered as a promising theoretical framework to guide teacher educators in designing and developing in-service K12 teacher education programs. However, it seems unclear whether in-service teachers have different TPACK perceptions when entering the education programs. This study surveyed the TPACK perceptions of 2,728 Chinese in-service K12 teachers. A questionnaire adapted from Koh, Chai, and Tsai’s survey was validated by reliability and validity tests. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that Chinese in-service K12 teacher’s TPACK perceptions could be grouped into five scales. Analyses of means and standard deviation of all the variables of the TPACK construct to examine Chinese in-service K12 teachers’ TPACK perceptions showed that teachers had rated themselves as slightly above five points for all the variables. Independent sample t tests to examine the relationships between in-service K12 teachers’ gender and the TPACK variables indicated that male teachers rated themselves higher than female teachers for the variable content knowledge (CK) and lower for the variable pedagogical content knowledge. F tests to examine the relationships between in-service K12 teachers’ years of service and the TPACK variables revealed that young in-service K12 teachers tended to perceive better in the capacities of applying technology and worse in the capacities of teaching method and subject matter. Hierarchical regression analysis to explore which variables (technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, CK, pedagogical content knowledge, technological content knowledge, and technological pedagogical knowledge) could predict the variable of TPACK showed that in-service K12 teachers’ perceptions of pedagogical knowledge, technological knowledge, and CK had the largest positive effect on the TPACK variable.

The primary goal of this study was to determine the trainings in the teachers’ learning and development for differentiated instruction to enhance the instructional strategies of the elementary school teachers in North Butuan District of the Division of Butuan City, Agusan del Norte. The participating teachers completed the TPACK survey which consisted of the demographic profile of teachers and the TPACK components namely: Technology Knowledge (TK), Content Knowledge (CK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), Technology Pedagogy and Content Knowledge (TPACK) and Differentiated Instruction survey instrument about mathematics. In addition, both surveys were analyzed based on how the teachers performed in TPACK and differentiated instruction and percentage of the capacity of teachers based on the two different methods of teaching. Among the four components of TPACK, the technological knowledge, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge had the highest mean. The level of differentiated instruction of the participants in terms of lesson design and implementation revealed that learning activities are varied got the highest mean. In addition, the differentiated instruction in terms of lesson design and implementation, content, procedures, communication and learning were found to have the highest mean. Teachers teaching elementary mathematics may be requested to attend webinars on TPACK or related seminars/webinars to enhance their knowledge in dealing with the content in mathematics specifically word problems and their concerns on differentiated instruction.

ABSTRACTThis Special Issue aims to present evidence about the relationships between content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); the development of these types of knowledge in novice and experienced secondary science teachers; and how CK, PK and/or PCK impact students’ learning. Since Shulman’s introduction of PCK as the feature that distinguishes the teacher from the content expert, researchers have attempted to understand, delineate, assess and/or develop the construct in pre- and in-service teachers. Accordingly, empirical findings are presented that permit further discussion. Outcomes permit post-hoc examination of a recent, collectively described, ‘consensus’ model of PCK, identifying strengths and potential issues. As we will illustrate, the relationship between CK, PK and PCK is central to this; that is, probing the hypothesis of pedagogical content knowledge as an ‘amalgam’ of content and pedagogical knowledge.

ABSTRACTTeachers’ professional knowledge is considered one of the most important predictors of instructional quality. According to Shulman, such professional knowledge includes content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge. Although recent research shed some light on the structure of the dimensions of professional knowledge, little is known how teacher education impacts pre-service physics teachers’ professional knowledge. In an effort to address this issue, we examined the content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge of N = 200 pre-service physics teachers enrolled in different years of teacher education at 12 major teacher education universities in Germany. We used structural equation modelling (1) to examine the relations amongst pre-service physics teachers’ content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge, (2) to explore how the three kinds of knowledge and their relations differ across different stages of teacher education and (3) to identify factors affecting the level of each component of professional knowledge. Our findings suggest that content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge represent distinct types of knowledge. Furthermore, our findings show that in the first years of professional education, pedagogical content knowledge is more closely related with general pedagogical knowledge while in later years, it is more closely related with content knowledge, suggesting that it develops from a general knowledge about teaching and learning into knowledge about the teaching and learning of specific content. Finally, beyond school achievement and years of enrolment as predictors, we find in particular the amount of classroom observations to have a positive impact on the professional knowledge of pre-service physics teachers.

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is important for teachers’ instructional effectiveness. This study investigated the self-reported level of PCK among in-service elementary school science teachers in a municipality in Ghana, examining the overall level of PCK. An In-Service Elementary Science Teachers Self-Reported PCK (IEST-SR-PCK) scale was developed and validated to capture teachers’ self-reported PCK. In this quantitative descriptive survey, 225 randomly sampled teachers responded and returned questionnaire items. Through exploratory factor analysis, five self-reported PCK dimensions were identified: orientations toward science teaching, knowledge of instructional strategies for teaching science, awareness of assessment methods in science, knowledge of the science curriculum, and knowledge about student understanding of science. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed these factors. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the self-reported PCK scores. The findings revealed that 78.25% of teachers self-reported as having high levels of PCK in three dimensions, with variations and slightly lower scores in knowledge about student understanding of science. Also, 85.3% of teachers self-reported within the basic, proficient, and exemplary levels of PCK, while 14.7% reported limited PCK, indicating the need for differentiated support and ongoing professional development. Finally, the findings showed that gender did not significantly influence the self-reported level of PCK among in-service elementary science teachers. It is recommended that, based on this snapshot, regular in-service training courses be organized for elementary school science teachers to enhance their PCK and align their teaching with current educational concepts. The implications for policy and practice discussed areas of strength and those requiring further support to enhance teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes.

This study explored the long-term impact of faculty-created reformed undergraduate science courses on the pedagogical practices of kindergarten through sixth grade inservice elementary teachers who took these reform courses during their undergraduate programs. On-site case studies were completed with 35 faculty instructors teaching entry-level undergraduate science courses at 20 higher education institutions and 91 elementary inservice teachers. The sample was selected from a national population of diverse colleges and universities that had undergone reform in one or more of their undergraduate science courses. The data collection protocol involved class-room observations, interviews, artifact analysis, semi-structured interviews, and field notes from multiple instruments and sources. Data were collected during on-site visits from instructors and their graduated students. Quantitative and qualitative analysis identified variations in faculty instructors’ as well as inservice teachers’ perceptions and observations of the intended and enacted teaching goals, instruction, student difficulties, and rationale for teaching a specific science concept in observed science lessons. These perceptions and observations, identified as science pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), varied significantly among both faculty instructors and inservice elementary teachers who experienced the undergraduate reformed science courses taught by these same faculty instructors. Moreover, the following characteristics regarding the pedagogical content knowledge of faculty instructors and their graduated inservice elementary teachers emerged: content knowledge regarding the science concept taught and observed during instruction, (2) orientations consistent with reform instruction advocated by the National Science Education Standards for effective science teaching, (3) purposeful selection of activities that best engender student understanding of specific science concepts, and (4) reflective practitioner.

The purpose of the current study is to examine differences between online learning and AR (Augmented Reality)/VR (Virtual Reality)-based learning, thereby providing practical implications to support teachers for AR/VR-based teaching and learning. For the study, an online questionnaire was distributed to 186 inservice elementary school teachers. The collected data was analyzed using Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework with teacher individual-level factors (i.e., content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, information communication technology professional development (ICT PD), level of technology use, constructivist beliefs) and school-level factors (i.e., school infrastructure, support, and atmosphere) as independent variables, and teachers TPACK level for online and AR/VR-based learning as dependent variables. Results showed that teachers technology knowledge, technological content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge in online learning were higher than those of AR/VR-based learning. Among individual-level factors, ICT PD was found to be an important influencer both in online and AR/VR-based learning, but constructivist beliefs influenced online learning only. Among school-level factors, school atmosphere for technology integration was the most influencing variable. When all variables considered, ICT PD was found to have the most importance for technology-enhanced teaching and learning.

The aim of this study was to develop and verify a questionnaire to evaluate the demand for technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) measurement towards teachers, as there is a demand in the TPACK components domain to amplify their capability in education, such as technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. This study added two new components such as technological pedagogical content knowledge and contextual knowledge. Questionnaire verification was performed through literature review, and content verification was performed by experts, concluded by a factorial and reliability verification. The instrument was implemented with 400 teachers who teach Malay language subject at Secondary school in Malaysia. The verified questionnaire had eight components, and the dependability of the instrument was quantified using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, with a scale comprising eight subscales: technological knowledge (.934), pedagogical knowledge (.963), content knowledge (.967), pedagogical content knowledge (.975), technological content knowledge (.966), technological pedagogical knowledge (.979), technological pedagogical content knowledge (.969), and contextual knowledge (.955). Eight components were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to determine the credibility of the structure. The results showed that the eight-factor variable model fits well and met the requirements of goodness of fit indices (>.90) and RMSEA (. The knowledge and teaching skills possessed by teachers will grow in line with their experience in national education arena. Therefore, the validation of instrumentation was to measure and determine the components of TPACK, which are technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, technological pedagogical content knowledge and contextual knowledge for teachers.

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) are essential for effective teaching, yet music education in the Philippines, particularly regarding intercultural traditions and career preparation remains underexplored (Manila, 2020; Borromeo, cited by Jacinto, 2019). This study examined the state of music education in the Division of Tandag City, focusing on the PCK of public elementary school teachers in Grades 4, 5, and 6. It investigated teachers’ profiles, content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and challenges in delivering music education. Data were gathered from 55 MAPEH teachers across 27 elementary schools using a questionnaire. Results revealed that while most teachers had formal education, 94.5% lacked specialized music training. Content knowledge proficiency was found to be at the “beginning” stage, particularly in rhythm (M = 1.35), melody (M = 1.05), form (M = 1.15), and harmony (M = 1.36), with tempo (M = 2.91) being the most proficient area at the “approaching proficiency” stage. Pedagogical knowledge was moderate, with teachers showing confidence in song analysis (M = 3.77) and teaching songs (M = 3.47). Challenges included inadequate training, lack of resources, and negative attitudes toward music. Statistical analysis using ANOVA revealed that music-specific training significantly impacted content knowledge (p = 0.005) and pedagogical knowledge (p = 0.014). Pearson correlation analysis showed weak correlations between content and pedagogical knowledge, with timbre (r = -0.275, p = 0.042) and harmony (r = -0.294, p = 0.029) showing significant negative correlations with teaching effectiveness. The findings emphasized the need for targeted professional development programs to improve music education, with recommendations for enhancing teacher training, integrating music education into teacher preparation, and providing essential resources.

This research aims to describe the profile of pedagogical knowledge (PK) capabilities, content knowledge (CK), and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of physics students who are conducting integrated field recognition practices (PPLT). This research is qualitative descriptive research, where all data are collected based on facts obtained in the field, so descriptive data were obtained from respondents who were selected. The research subjects involved 6 physics education students who conducted PPLT at school as respondents. The selected category is based on a cumulative achievement index. The selected respondents were 2 high ability students, 2 medium students, and 2 low ability students. Data obtained through pedagogical knowledge observation sheets, content knowledge tests, and pedagogical content knowledge observation questionnaires. The data was taken from PPLT student learning compilation in schools. Based on the results of research on the ability of PK, CK, and PCK PPLT physics education students obtained, that students who have high PK and CK abilities have high PCK abilities, while students who have PK abilities and low CK abilities also have high PCK abilities.