Exploring the structure of TPACK with video-embedded and discipline-focused assessments

Abstract

The appropriate selection and implementation of technology in instruction is made possible by teachers' Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). The TPACK that inservice teachers develop is practitioner-based and can be continuously transformed with teaching experiences. In this study, we constructed video-embedded and discipline-focused questionnaires to measure science teachers' TPACK. Item sets were generic across four disciplines and designed to investigate teachers' TPACK at different levels of the cognitive process. Each questionnaire was embedded with three instructional clips in which preservice teachers demonstrated their previously-prepared lessons on selected topics in biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics. Through exploratory factor analysis, four factors (i.e., evaluation, evaluation/synthesis, application/analysis, and knowledge/comprehension) emerged from the data. The presumed hierarchical interrelationships among these cognitive processes were investigated through a path analysis. The findings indicated that teachers’ TPACK at the knowledge/comprehension level made significant loadings to TPACK at higher levels, but this was not the case for application/analysis. The disconnect for application/analysis within the simple-to-complex cognitive process hierarchy suggests that it should be viewed as different from the other three constructs that incorporate more instructional reasoning. The designs for the questionnaire items and embedded instructional clips that were used to elicit teachers’ practical knowledge are presented herein.