Exploring the Structure of TPACK with video-embedded and discipline-focused assessment: a summary

Hi everyone,

Still about summarizing paper that relates to TPACK, this time I am going to an interesting paper written by Yi-Feh Yeh (from Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University), Ying-Shao Hsu, Hsin-Kai Wu and Sung-Pei Chen (Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University). This paper entitled exploring the structure of TPACK with vide-embedded and discipline-focused assessment was published in Elsevier journal under category computers and education (Elsevier.com/locate/compedu). This paper started available online on October 18, 2016.

This paper is about how science teachers in Taiwan implementing TPACK in their teaching process. As we know that TPACK is using technology as a tool to assist teachers’ instruction and help students in the learning process. Science is one of the subjects that gets benefits from TPACK because delivering the material is easier when it is using technology for visualization. When there is a disciplinary distinction, TPACK can be viewed in three-tiered knowledge and those are discipline specific, domain specific, and trans-disciplinary or trans-domain education (Norris and Phillip, 2003).

TPACK is a wide view and it can relate to personal knowledge and instructional application. Some teachers do not know how to use technology and they can start it by using Bloom’s taxonomy, which is from simple to complex (Bloom, 1956). Teachers can do modification in Bloom’s taxonomy and some researchers also found similar modification in TPACK development (Niels et al., 2009; Niess, 2011; Rogers, 1995; Yeh, Lin, Hsu, Wu, and Hwang, 2015). Teachers usually use ICT-enhanced lessons and content-driven digital learning tools for learning and evaluation purposes. When interpreting classroom practices, experienced teachers were found that more capable than inexperienced teachers that focused on their roles in instruction.

The objectives of the research in this paper are to evaluate science teachers’ declarative and dynamic TPACK, to identify key factors that contribute to science teachers, and to find the relationships among various factors.  The object of this research was high school science (four subjects: biology, chemistry earth science, and physics) teachers in Taiwan. This research was started by target domain specification, item generation, purifying measures through pilot study data collection, reliability and validity check. The instrument used in this research was a questionnaire and there was four set questionnaire. Three questionnaires were validated through 318 Turkish teachers’ self-rating survey (Ay, Karadag, and Acat, 2015).   The others were designed based on Blooms’ taxonomy. Teachers’ knowledge about TPACK is evaluated using three steps, application, analysis and evaluation.

The data collected were scored differently. Teachers need to rate according to a 5-point Likert scale when answering the questionnaire about the appropriateness of each mapping technological tools. There were eight experienced teachers that in charge of item validation then followed by triangulation. Besides questionnaire, there was also rubric drafted based on the result of the interview then validated through standard-setting methods (Jen, Yeh, Hsu, Wu and Chen, 2016). The expert teachers also gave advice in constructing rubric and there were 14 experienced teachers that invited to the workshop. It was found that inter-rater reliability was 82% after the first round and increased to 100% on another two rounds.

The research showed that the loading of the 11 items ranged from 0.55 to 0.94, implying that the 30%-88% variances we explain by their underlying factors. Total variance was 58.59%. Reliability of the items within the same factor was between 0.72 and 0.80.it was also found that estimated path between knowledge, application and evaluation were significant. But the teachers’ knowledge did not show significant contribution to the evaluation directly. The designed questionnaire was distributed as e-questionnaire, so it gives more accessibility for teachers and researchers but there were some limitations to the current study. First, development of trans-disciplinary TPACK was not considered in the measurement design because there is no official STEM program in Taiwan. Second, the e-questionnaire is good but it needs open-response format for completing and scoring. Third, the result of this research is useful not only for teachers but also for teacher educators who interest in teaching science using technology.

Instructional clip can be resourceful resource for teachers to study, reflect upon, discuss and assessed by.  TPACK is useful in education but knowledge about how to implement it is also important before start to implement it. Teachers need some efforts to develop their knowledge in using technology.