A JOURNAL SUMMARY (15)

A comparison of pre-service, in-service and formation program for teachers’ perceptions of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) in English Language Teaching (ELT)

Yıldız Turgut

Department of English Language Teaching, Faculty of Education, Adnan Menderes University, Turkey

Academic Journals / Educational Research and Reviews

Studies on TPACK in teaching English as a second or other languages (TESOL) or as a foreign language (EFL) still to be scarce. The writer stated that this journal may be the first in TPACK research to provide the comparison of pre-service and in-service teachers in a single refined major: English language teaching (ELT). This study aims to explore the TPACK among pre-service teachers from ELT program at education faculty, candidates of ELT certificate program and in-service EFL teachers at primary and secondary schools in Turkey.

The study was conducted in the ELT department of a state university located at the southern part of Turkey. In selecting the participants, convenience sampling technique was employed. 195 participants were selected. They are included preservice teachers (PTs) attending to senior level in a four-year ELT program at Education Faculty (N= 53), English language teacher-candidates enrolled in the Teacher Certificate Program (N= 39), and in-service English language teachers working at primary and secondary schools (N=103) participated voluntarily in the study. ELT program and Certification program were offered by the same department.

The TPACK Framework

The data was collected using TPACK survey, a 5-point Likert confidence scale, included multiple items related to each of the seven types of knowledge represented in the TPACK. Also, it employed open-ended questions at the end of the survey and class observations conducted both in the ELT department and practicum schools. The statistical data was analyzed through Games -Howell post hoc and the qualitative data from the open-ended items that investigated the respondents’ perceptions was analyzed through Phenomenological Data Analysis.

The findings revealed that there was a significant difference among PTs‟ attending to senior level in ELT program, teacher-candidates enrolled in ELT teacher-certificate program, and in-service ELT teachers’ self-perceptions of TPACK. The open-ended questions of the survey and classroom observations showed that PTs’ TPACK knowledge and applications were more advanced than teacher-candidates and in-service teachers.