Nature and development of pre-service teachers’ TPACK

This longitudinal study (1.9.2016 – 31.8.2021) focuses on pre-service teachers’ developing technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) using a mixed-methods approach. TPACK is a theoretical framework for studying (pre-service) teachers’ professional knowledge of pedagogically meaningful use of ICT in education. TPACK consists of three knowledge areas—content, pedagogy and technology—and their combinations (technological pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, technological content knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge). Research findings describe the contents of different areas of pre-service teachers’ TPACK: different ICT applications (technological knowledge), ways to use ICT for studying certain content knowledge (technological content knowledge), etc. The contents also outline the strong and weak areas of TPACK. The results also define how areas of TPACK relate to each other. Development outlines phases of development and factors affecting this development. The areas of TPACK are typically difficult to acknowledge and articulate. For this reason, the data will be collected in three ways using questionnaire, lesson descriptions, and interviews. Combinations of different research methods provide confirmation for each other and expand the insight into the research topic. Research data will be collected during four semesters at University of Eastern Finland. The target group consists of a cohort of pre-service teachers starting their studies in 2016. This cohort will be followed for four years. The results of this study will provide evidence-based tools for developing teacher education and educational systems for taking better advantage of ICT in education. Despite the omnipresence of ICT in todays’ society, its meaningful use in schools has proven challenging (European Commission, 2013). Additionally, pre-service teachers have difficulties in pedagogically meaningful use of ICT in education (Lei, 2009). Knowing the structure, contents, and development of pre-service teachers’ TPACK will provide tools for designing teaching methods, environments, interventions etc., for supporting pre-service teachers’ skills for using ICT for to supporting teaching and learning. Research project is funded by the Academy of Finland. Recent publications:

Valtonen, T., Leppänen, U., Hyypiä, M., Sointu, E., Smits, A., & Tondeur, J. (2020). Fresh perspectives on TPACK: pre-service teachers’ own appraisal of their challenging and confident TPACK areas. Education and Information Technologies, 1-20.

Valtonen, T., Sointu, E., Kukkonen, J., Mäkitalo, K., Hoang, N., Häkkinen, P., Järvelä, S., Näykki, P., Virtanen, A., Pöntinen, S., Kostiainen, E., & Tondeur, J. (2019). Examining pre‐service teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge as evolving knowledge domains: A longitudinal approach. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 35(4), 491-502.