A Study On TPACK Perceptions And Influencing Factors Of Secondary School English Teachers

The proliferation of educational technologies leads to a challenge for building a high-quality teaching staff in secondary schools.As a knowledge structure combined with pedagogy,content,and technology,technological pedagogical and content knowledge(TPACK)has recently not only become a new requirement for teachers in this information era but has also been studied extensively in the education field.A large number of these studies make efforts on TPACK status investigation rather than analysis of influencing factors.In addition,although TPACK puts its emphasis on subject knowledge,which leads to an increasing number of studies on TPACK,there are few comparative studies on TPACK of secondary English teachers in different development stages.This study aims to investigate TPACK level and influencing factors of secondary school English teachers and compare TPACK differences of novice,experienced and expert teachers so as to put forward suggestions for teachers,schools,and teacher educators about how to improve teachers’ TPACK levels.Therefore,this study raises the following three questions:(1)What are the general TPACK perceptions of secondary school English teachers in China?(2)What are the influencing factors that predict their TPACK? And how do these factors influence TPACK?(3)What are the TPACK perceptions of secondary school English teachers in different professional development stages? Are there any differences in TPACK between different groups? To solve these questions,questionnaires are distributed to a total of 292 middle school English teachers from all over the country,and 288 are valid(including 72 novice teachers,169 experienced teachers,and 47 expert teachers).T-test,variance analysis,and linear regression analysis are used to study the status quo and influencing factors of middle school English teachers’ TPACK,and the TPACK perceptions of the three groups of teachers are compared.The results show that,firstly,the TPACK level of middle school English teachers is relatively high,especially in PK.However,their technological content knowledge(TCK)and technology knowledge(TK)are relatively low,especially TK.Secondly,among teacher beliefs and demographic factors studied,constructivist belief(CB),technology value belief(TVB),gender,teaching age,and professional title can affect teachers’ TPACK,and CB and TVB have positive influence on teachers’ TPACK.Thirdly,in the TPACK comparative analysis of the three groups of teachers,the overall TPACK level of experienced teachers and expert teachers is higher than that of novice teachers,while the novice teachers perform significantly better than the other two groups of teachers in terms of TK.Based on the results of the above data analysis,as well as influencing factors of secondary school English TPACK perceptions and the characteristics of three groups of teachers’ TPACK,this article puts forward some suggestions considering improving the TPACK level of English teachers,controlling influencing factors of TPACK,and improving TPACK level of middle school English teachers at different development stages.(1)Improving the ability of secondary school English teachers to use technology,especially subject-related technology.For example,teachers can use some software in phonetic teachings,like Aboboo and Praat;(2)Strengthening the propaganda work of teaching philosophy and teaching technology to promote teachers’ understanding of constructivist beliefs and favorable impression on educational technology;(3)Paying attention to female teachers’ TPACK and narrowing this gender difference.(4)Improving pedagogical knowledge of novice teachers and providing more opportunities for their teaching practice;(5)Increasing the cooperation,such as collaborative lesson planning in the English subject research group,between more experienced teachers and novice teachers;...