A Study On The Current Status Of Senior High School English Teachers’ TPACK

In the context of the Internet era,modern technologies are increasingly used in the field of teaching.As the result,educators need to have a better ability to use modern technologies.American scholars Koehler and Mishra formally proposed TPACK in 2006.Since then,many domestic and foreign experts and scholars conducted extensive research on TPACK.Numerous research results have showed that teachers’ TPACK level is of vital importance to the improvement and breakthrough of teachers’ professional skills in the context of the information age.The premise to improve teachers’ TPACK is to understand the current status of teachers’ TPACK levels.Therefore,the present study is to investigate the current situation of senior high school English teachers’ TPACK,with the purpose of putting forward feasible advice on improving the TPACK level of English teachers and accelerating their professional development.This study used 121 English teachers from three senior high schools in Kunming as its research sample.Through questionnaires and interviews,it investigated the current status and development of senior high school English teachers’ TPACK.There are three research questions in this study:(1)What is the current situation of senior high school English teachers’ TPACK?(2)Are there any differences in TPACK among senior high school English teachers in respect to demographic variables?(3)What are the correlations among the seven dimensions of senior high school English teachers’ TPACK? The first research question is put forward to examine the general level of senior high school English teachers’ TPACK.The second research question is designed to find out the demographic variablesaffecting TPACK of English teachers.And the third research question is to explore the correlations between seven dimensions in the TPACK structure.The results of the present study indicated that: 1)The TPACK of senior high school English teachers was generally at a moderately high level,but there was still much room for improvement.Their self-assessments of TPACK capabilities were only at a medium level.Teachers were more confident about their non-technology-related knowledge,while they were not confident about their technology-related knowledge.In addition,most of senior high school English teachers were not familiar with TPACK;2)As for the influencing demographic variables,only “age”,“years of teaching”,“professional titles”,and “experience in information technology courses”,these four demographic variables had significant impacts on senior high school English teachers’ TPACK level.Nevertheless,the remaining demographic variables,such as “gender”,had no significant influence on senior high school English teachers’ TPACK.Different teachers believed that there were various factors affecting TPACK,such as age and competence of using technologies;3)Differing from previous scholars’ studies,there was no significantly positive correlation between PK and TK of senior high school English teachers.There were significantly positive correlations only between the rest dimensions.Based on the data analysis and results of interview,this study draws the following conclusions and implications: 1)Due to the low level of teachers’ TK,senior high school English teachers’ TPACK is only at a moderately high level.Schools should encourage teachers to participate in information technology training and courses actively to improve TPACK;2)There are differences in TPACK level of senior high school English teachers at different stages of development.Schools should adopt different training methods for novice and proficient teachers to developtheir TPACK;3)Integrated knowledge(TCK,TPK and PCK)has more significant correlations with TPACK.So teachers should pay more attention to the development and cultivation of their integrated knowledge for improving TPACK.At the end of the study,some suggestions have been proposed with the purpose of providing reference for the development and improvement of senior high school English teachers’ TPACK and for subsequent related studies on TPACK.