An Analysis of Social Studies Teachers’ Perception Levels Regarding Web Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Abstract

Web pedagogical content knowledge generally takes pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and Web knowledge as basis. It is a structure emerging through the interaction of these three components. Content knowledge refers to knowledge of subjects to be taught. Pedagogical knowledge involves knowledge of process, implementation, learning methods, and teaching methods. Web knowledge is about general Web competencies such as the use of tools related to the Web, Web-based communication, and Web-based interaction. The purpose of this study is to analyze social studies teachers’ perception levels regarding Web pedagogical content knowledge. The population of the study covers social studies teachers in Turkey while the sample of the study covers 601 social studies teachers who were randomly selected from 75 cities of Turkey in 2015. Data collection tool employed in this study is Web Pedagogical Content Knowledge Scale composed of 30 items and five factors, developed by Lee, Tsai, and Chang (2008), and adapted to the Turkish language by Horzum (2011). Data analysis of the study was conducted via IBM SPSS Statistic 23 package. The findings were analyzed based on arithmetic mean, standard deviation, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. The significance of the data was evaluated at a significance level of 0.05. The results indicate that social studies teachers’ perceptions regarding Web pedagogical content knowledge are high. The results also show that they consider themselves competent in this matter, and their perceptions regarding Web pedagogical content knowledge significantly vary by gender, the Department of graduation, and experience of using computers whereas they do not significantly differ by educational background and status of having a computer.