Current trends in TPACK research in science education: A systematic review of literature from 2011 to 2017

Abstract

This paper reviews the research published from 2011 to 2017 that focuses on the characteristics and emerging topics on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) in Science education. A systematic search of the relevant research was undertaken of electronic databases including ERIC and Scopus using several key terms. Focussing on peer-reviewed journal articles, the screening process began with a perusal of the title and abstract, followed by the analysis of the purpose, method, findings, discussion and conclusion. The results showed that most of the research used pre-service teachers as the participants (56%). One-third used in-service teachers (31%) or both of them (13%). Furthermore, our results showed that the majority of studies use general science context (69%). Fewer studies focussed on specific subject domains, including biology (13%), Chemistry (19%), and Physics (6%). Based on the analysis of the current research, we found five key emerging trends, including the identification of teachers' TPACK (100%), the relationship between TPACK and other components of technology integration (19%), strategies to developing preservice teachers TPACK (50%), how teacher implement TPACK (44%), and developing an instrument for TPACK (19%). Based on the analysis, we suggest some topics that need further investigation.