Guo, Y., Li, Y., & Li, M. (2016). Are K–12 teachers ready for technology-enhanced teaching and learning? A study on teachers’ TPACK level in a provincial city in China. In E. L. Brown, A. Krasteva, & M. Ranieri (Eds.), E-Learning and social media: Education and citizenship for the digital 21st century (pp. 65-92). Information Age Publishing. Excerpts in Google Books

Abstract:

“Over the last few decades, the incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) into daily pedagogical practices has been viewed as a viable solution for the innovation of educational systems. Teachers have been seen as crucial actors in this process, and therefore much emphasis has been put on the necessity to provide them with adequate technological and pedagogical competences through training and lifelong learning. However, while a greater knowledge of teachers’ level of skills in technology-enhanced learning would be extremely helpful to deliver effective training courses, up to now, empirical studies on teachers’ digital and pedagogical skills have been poor and fragmented, especially in developing and populous countries such as China. The current study attempted to explore this issue in a provincial city in China, through the assessment of K-12 teachers’ levels of skills in technology, pedagogy and content, and by looking into factors that might have influenced the obtained results. The research design was descriptive in nature and Mishra and Koehler’s (2006, 2009) technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) model was adopted as the theoretical framework. Besides determining teachers’ level of skills, six hypotheses on possible correlations between teachers’ TPACK level and their personal characteristics were investigated. Results of data analysis revealed that: (1) surveyed Chinese K-12 teachers (N=691) were more competent in non-technology-related TPACK domains than in technology-related TPACK domains; (2) male teachers rated themselves to be more competent in all of the seven TPACK domains than did female teachers; (3) discipline had a significant impact on K-12 teachers’ technology-related knowledge domains; (4) age, professional title and teaching experience had a significant impact on K-12 teachers’ TK, CK, and PCK; (5) online education experience had a significant impact on all seven TPACK domains of the K-12 teachers involved in the study. These results suggested that, regardless of age and the teaching experience, K-12 teachers in China need more training, especially in the area of ICT-pedagogy integration, and that increasing teachers’ online educational experience could be an encouraging factor to make teachers more familiar with the use of ICTs in their daily pedagogical practices.”