J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
DOI 10.1007/s10956-014-9523-7
Science Teachers’ Proficiency Levels and Patterns of TPACK
in a Practical Context
Yi-Fen Yeh • Tzu-Chiang Lin • Ying-Shao Hsu •
Hisn-Kai Wu • Fu-Kwun Hwang
Published online: 30 October 2014
 Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract Technological pedagogical content knowledge-
practical (TPACK-P) refers to a unified body of knowledge
that teachers develop from and for actual teaching practices
with information communication technologies (ICT). This
study attempted to unveil the longitudinal and multidi-
mensional development of knowledge that teachers possess
by interviewing 40 teachers with various backgrounds in
subject content, years of teaching experience, and related
award-winning records. An automated cluster analysis was
used on the codes given to teachers’ responses based on
their proficiency levels in different knowledge areas. Three
different types of teachers with distinctive features were
identified: technology-infusive (TI), technology transi-
tional (TR), and planning and design (PD). TI teachers
were more student-centered as compared to TR teachers
who were more teacher-centered when asked about possi-
ble technology uses. PD teachers were fluent in planning
and designing but lacked the balanced development dem-
onstrated by the TI and TR teachers. These science
teachers’ TPACK were found stayed at the level of ‘‘simple
Y.-F. Yeh
Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University,
Taipei, Taiwan
T.-C. Lin
Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education, National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
Y.-S. Hsu (&)
H.-K. Wu
Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan
Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan
e-mail: yshsu@ntnu.edu.tw
F.-K. Hwang
Department of Physics, National Taiwan Normal University,
Taipei, Taiwan
123
adoption.’’ These findings suggest that teachers’ TPACK-P
needs to be developed with an accumulation of contextu-
alized and dynamic experiences during ICT implementa-
tion in actual teaching. Explicit demonstrations regarding
how ICTs can be used meaningfully to assist science
instruction would be needed in teacher education.
Keywords ICT
Practical knowledge
PCK
Teacher
education
TPACK-practical
Introduction
As contemporary science education reforms have empha-
sized the inclusion of information communication tech-
nologies (ICT), the interest toward developing teachers’
pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been extended
to technology implementation (Campbell and Abd-Hamid
2012; National Research Council (NRC) 2012). PCK
dealing with ICT has been referred to as technological
pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK; Mishra and
Koehler 2006). TPACK is conceptualized as a set of inte-
grative teacher knowledge consisted of technological
knowledge (TK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), content
knowledge (CK), and their mutually integrated knowledge
like technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK), techno-
logical content knowledge (TCK), and PCK. However,
Angeli and Valanides (2009) thought that TPACK should
be acquired as a unified set of knowledge, demanding
transformational mapping of factors and consideration of
learners, pedagogy, representations, and tool affordances.
Knowing the affordances of ICTs is not the whole picture
of TPACK; instead, teachers must consider how to teach
with appropriate selections of ICTs after considering
essential instructional factors, like specific content,
J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
Table 1 Knowledge dimensions in three domains of TPACK-
practical
Assessment Planning and designing Practical teaching
Using ICTs to Using ICT to understand Infusing ICTs into
understand subject content teaching contexts
students
Planning ICT-infused Applying ICTs to
Using ICTs to curriculum instructional
assess Using ICT representations to management
students present instructional
representations
Employing ICT-integrated
teaching strategies
There are 2–4 indicators for each knowledge dimension. Details are
listed in Yeh et al. (2014)
students, and the teaching environment. Clearly, the prac-
tical application of TPACK in learning–teaching environ-
ments needs consideration to fully achieve the epistemic
potential of ICT in learning science. Defining TPACK-
practical (TPACK-P) operationally was the central focus of
this survey study of practicing science teachers with ICT-
infused teaching experience.
Background
TPACK-P (Yeh et al. 2014) refers to the knowledge
framework that science teachers develop from and for their
practical teaching with the assistance of ICTs. This unified
knowledge set, which was constructed through a research
panel and an expert panel’s collaborative efforts, reflected
eight instructional phases or dimensions that teachers
would encounter and consider in their science instruction
(Table 1). The knowledge teachers build from these eight
dimensions can be roughly categorized into three domains
(i.e., assessment, planning and designing, and practical
teaching) that are the main areas teacher education pro-
grams need to work on for developing twenty-first century
teachers’ professional knowledge (National Commission
on Teaching and America’s Future 2003; Darling-Ham-
mond 2006). Generally speaking, in the framework of
TPACK-P, assessment domain refers to informative tech-
niques that teachers use ICTs to know about learners.
Planning and designing domain refers to the techniques
that teachers use to prepare curriculum adaptively with the
considerations of learners’ individuality and features of
target curriculum. This tentative repertoire of who and
what to teach provides the basis for practical teaching
domain, which includes the techniques to ensure ICT-
infused instruction can be carried out smoothly in various
learning contexts.
79
Assessment
Contemporary interpretations of assessment go beyond the
traditional focus on summative assessments regarding
accountability and ranking and sorting student performance
to include formative functions (NRC 2012). Formative
assessment informs instruction and empowers learning
since it provides checkpoints and feedback for teachers and
students. In science learning, it is common to see learners
developing misconceptions, alternative conceptions, and
faulty understanding (Jones and Moreland 2005; Jong et al.
2005; Thompson et al. 2011). Therefore, preassessment,
formative assessment, and postassessment are needed to
monitor and evaluate the learning–teaching process
(McNair 2004), for which computer-assisted assessments
(CAA) could be useful for teachers to diagnose students’
problems and then offer remedial instruction for the con-
struction of students’ scientific concept (Amir and Tamir
1994). In fact, not many teachers thought these types of
assessments constructive to students’ learning, or they
showed capacity and willingness to implement CAA into
their course (Muwanga-Zake 2006). The framework of
TPACK-P suggests that teachers’ knowledge in ICT-
infused assessment is critical since it determines how well
they assess students’ learning with proper ICT tools and
strategies, make correct interpretations of assessment
results (Falk 2012; Fan et al. 2012), and examine and
reflect on their teaching efficiency (Davis and Krajcik
2005; Otero 2006). The feedback from and reflections on
multidimensional assessments prior to, during, and after
student learning can be used to initiate adaptive teaching
and learning.
Curriculum Planning and Designing
Curriculum planning and designing for ICT-infused
learning experiences occupies an important position at
which teachers prepare for upcoming teaching practices,
with insights of pedagogy and content from student
assessment results and with professional learning and prior
experiences, to match students’ needs within the intended
outcomes (Sherin and Drake 2009). Planning and designing
learning experiences for students are indications of tea-
cher’s PCK in that they illustrate ‘‘the ways of representing
and formulating the subject that makes it comprehensible
for others’’ (Shulman 1986, p. 9). A good grasp of subject
matter, students, and educational context would be required
for constructing appropriate curriculum and learning
opportunities (Clark and Peterson 1986; Jones and More-
land 2004; So 1997). For science teaching, Magnusson
et al. (1999) stated that knowledge of subject matter would
include ‘‘knowledge of student understanding of science’’
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80
(p. 104; e.g., misconceptions, difficult concepts, and
effective learning approaches) and ‘‘knowledge of science
curriculum’’ (p. 103; e.g., learning goals, and horizontal
and vertical curricula). A critical influence for transforming
and infusing technology into these plans and designs
requires knowledge of ICT affordances that can help
teachers design appropriate curriculum by better mapping
student needs, curriculum requirements, and teaching
strategies (Angeli and Valanides 2009). This transforma-
tion would be challenges for twenty-first century teachers.
Practical Teaching
Practical teaching refers to the ‘‘wisdom of practice’’
(Shulman 1986, p. 9) that accumulates and refines when
teachers interact with students during instruction and then
reflect on their actions and outcomes. The science knowl-
edge that teachers use to build instruction originally comes
from complicated arguments, abstract logic, and mathe-
matical proofs that they accumulated from college; how-
ever, this knowledge becomes vague and less useful when
they actually convert it into practice (Gess-Newsome and
Lederman 1993). Science teaching needs to guide and
support students as they explore nature and make inquiries,
while ICTs offer stimuli, representations, and channels
(e.g., simulations, database, software prompts, and collab-
orative discussions) to accommodate students with heter-
ogeneous cognitive development in different inquiry
activities (e.g., form and adjust prediction, testing variables
and justifying hypotheses, and making models) and to
engage a variety of science ideas (Webb 2005). Successful
enactment of these science ideas into classrooms requires
transformations and re-representations to make them
accessible to younger and less experienced students.
However, the quality of how teachers use ICTs to assist
various instructional activities within limited class time
depends on how adaptively teachers can accommodate
students’ learning needs and shoot troubles in class, which
then positively sustain teachers’ confidence and willingness
to use ICTs into their instruction (Carlson 1994). These
practical experiences are critical to the development of
TPACK-P, but they are lacking in most preservice teacher
education or professional development programs. Contex-
tualizing preservice teachers with situational cases that
science teachers may encounter probably would offer
valuable resources for them to extend their visions of
TPACK-P.
Purpose of the Study
Since TPACK-P is nurtured with teachers’ professional
knowledge and experiences, it becomes a challenge for
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J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
teacher educators to promote and evaluate the profi-
ciency of teachers’ TPACK-P. We assumed that teachers
who taught with ICTs adeptly and knew how to deal
with problems they encountered when teaching with
ICTs were proficient in TPACK-P. In fact, teachers with
variable ICT experience may range from little consider-
ation of ICT’s instructional potential to rich, formal, and
informal experience with ICT as epistemic tools in doing
and learning science. Any attempt to enhance future
teachers’ conceptual and practical ICT knowledge will
need to document current teachers’ knowledge and
applications upon the completion of the professional
learning.
Several self-efficacy surveys have been designed and
employed to evaluate teachers’ proficiency in separate
domains of TPACK and the effectiveness of teacher
education programs (Archambault and Barnett 2010;
Burgoyne et al. 2010; Chai et al. 2010; Sahin 2011;
Schmidt et al. 2009). The self-efficacy formats offer good
instruments for teacher educators or teachers to quickly
check what skills teachers have and to estimate how
knowledgeable they are. TPACK is experience-embedded
and experience-driven; guiding teachers to rationalize
how and why they used certain ICTs to assist their
teaching would be a good strategy to evaluate their
TPACK or ICT-infused instruction. Authentic teaching
practices with ICTs in different contexts would be another
factor contributing to the heterogeneity of teachers’
TPACK proficiency (Friedrichsen et al. 2009). In that
way, this study is interested in knowing how teachers
actually apply TPACK-P in their teaching within the
scope of science teaching. This study aimed to (a) explore
and identify the levels of science teachers’ TPACK-P and
(b) categorize and characterize the groups of science
teachers based on their levels of TPACK-P. The infor-
mation that teachers shared with us is expected not only
to inform us about their current TPACK-P proficiency but
also how ICT implementation is (un)friendly to teachers
to realize in classroom. With teachers’ voices, teacher
education can be better designed and refined for accom-
modating teachers’ needs.
Methods
This study of teachers’ TPACK-P used a mixed-methods
approach (Creswell 2008; Creswell and Plano Clark 2011).
Interview data were collected and analyzed to reveal what
teachers think and do based on their TPACK knowledge.
Both quantitative data and qualitative data were presented
to better describe features of teacher groups with different
proficiency levels of TPACK-P.
J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
Participants
Practicing science teachers with different academic majors,
various lengths of teaching, and award-winning experi-
ences regarding technology-infused instruction were
recruited as participants. These science teachers were
identified from e-learning workshop participants and
award-winner teacher lists that were available online. We
individually contacted the potential participants by tele-
phone to determine their willingness to participate as well
as to determine their preliminary backgrounds. Only
teachers who had used technology to assist their instruction
were considered qualified participants. Finally, we invited
40 practicing science teachers in Taiwan, distributed
equally across four subject areas (biology, chemistry, earth
science, and physics). One-half of the 10 teachers from
each content area taught in junior high schools (grades
7–9), and the other half taught in high schools (grades
10–12); 18 had been honored with awards in e-learning
curriculum design.
Data Collection
Considering that practical knowledge is internally devel-
oped and varies by individual persons due to different life
experiences, semistructured interviews that are ‘‘literally an
inter view, an inter change of views between two persons
conversing about a theme of mutual interest’’ (Kvale and
Brinkmann 2009, p. 14) were determined to be good
approach for accessing and documenting the nuances
existing in teachers’ TPACK-P. Participant teachers were
interviewed about their understanding and practical expe-
riences with implementing technology in their science
instruction. The interview questions were generated based
on the indicators of TPACK-P dimensions and validated
through rounds of communications among and between the
research panel and an expert panel (Yeh et al. 2014). The
questions were designed to probe science teachers’
TPACK-P, but additional probing and clarifying questions
were provided as needed. Each interview was conducted
following the format of semistructured interview and lasted
between 50 and 90 min. Several pilot interviews were
conducted by the interviewers (one postdoctoral researcher
and two doctoral students) before the official interviews to
ensure procedural consistency and dependability of the
data.
Data Coding
All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed as verbatim
texts. Content was further verified with teachers if ambi-
guities were found in transcripts. Interview transcripts were
coded following the methods of axial (Strauss and Corbin
81
1990) and thematic coding (Flick 2002). These two qual-
itative analysis approaches were used to seek relational
patterns flowing from contexts, actions/interactions, and
their consequences in the phenomenon that involves com-
plex factors. The axial coding enabled researchers to verify
phenomenal hypothesis through patterns and causal rela-
tionships among cases deductively, whereas the thematic
coding was used to identify major themes from the
descriptions of cases. The three coders (who were also the
interviewers in this study) first skimmed the interview data
in order to acquire an overview of features mentioned by
these science teachers about their TPACK-P. The
researchers listed potential features expected of teachers in
different proficiency levels, based on the five stages (i.e.,
entry, adoption, adaption, appropriation, and invention) of
teachers’ adeptness in technology use (Hsu et al. 2007;
Sandholtz et al. 1997). We believed that entry-level users
should be further distinguished into ‘‘lack of technology
uses in teaching’’ and ‘‘no ideas of technology applica-
tions’’ in terms of their practical knowledge. Axial coding
of the responses was repeated to make necessary adjust-
ments reflecting the changes in these descriptive categories.
The final thematic coding scheme was revised to a total of
five levels, as shown in Table 2.
Unconscious audience responses, teachers who reported
themselves as having no ideas about technological appli-
cations in certain situations, were coded as ‘‘0—no idea’’
(Kay and LeSage 2009). Teacher responses were coded as
‘‘1—lack of use’’ if they showed themselves as having
basic understanding of ICTs in instruction but did not opt
for making use of it. Teacher responses were coded as ‘‘2—
simple adoption’’ when they mentioned ICT usage in their
teaching experiences but lacked statements of why and
how teachers used ICTs. Responses that included teachers’
personal implementation examples with educational ratio-
nales were coded as ‘‘3—infusive application.’’ Responses
that involved examples of implementation and rationale
with teachers’ reflective or innovative ideas were coded as
‘‘4—self-evaluation.’’ Some teachers made multiple
responses for indicators in the three dimensions; these
responses were coded based on the theme and corre-
sponding features, with the related responses threaded and
displayed to illustrate their complicated decision-making
process across the 17 indicators for 8 dimensions in total.
Only the highest code achieved in each indicator was
entered as the possible proficiency level for the dimension.
The interrater agreement (same level) among the three
coders was 96 %.
Data Analysis
All the 17 codes across dimensions that each teacher
expressed during their interview responses were entered
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Table 2 Coding categories of TPACK-P and examples of category components

Assessment Planning and designing Practical teaching

Level 0—no Never considered the possibility of using
idea ICTs in assessment
No idea about e-assessments such as
audience response system
Unable to differentiate traditional and
e-assessments
Level 1— Lacked hardware or software for
lack of use e-assessments
Thought of ICTs as good tools for
instruction but not for assessment
Thought the format of e-assessments
unfair to students
Level 2— Knew features of e-assessments
simple Used ICTs to present scientific phenomena
adoption in assessments
Mentioned uses of online systems (e.g.,
online questionnaire or audience
response system)
Level 3— Described how they applied ICTs to assess
infusive students
application Rationalized why and how they used
online assessments to understand
students’ learning progress
Used ICTs to understand students’
difficulties or alternative conceptions
Level 4— Reflectively commented how ICTs could
reflective be used in assessments to help teachers
applications understand students’ alternative concepts
Reflectively commented how e-infused
assessments could be used to evaluate
students’ progress and teaching
effectiveness
Explained how they implemented ICTs
into assessments to adaptively suiting
students’ learning needs
Never considered any instructional goal
for ICT-infused teaching
No idea about how to select proper ICT
representations to assist teaching
No idea about teaching strategies in ICT-
infused instruction
Thought ICT-infused instruction
preparation was time-consuming
Thought instructional effectiveness
depended on how clearly teachers orally
delivered the content, not the ICTs they
used
Thought teaching with ICTs was a
teaching strategy, so no other strategies
were needed
Believed ICT uses enhanced students’
motivation, engagement, and
concentration
Rationalized why ICT-infused instruction
facilitated science content instruction
Thought external factors determined the
success of ICT-infused instruction
Used ICTs to better understand academic
content or teaching strategies
Indicated how they used ICTs to support
students’ scientific thinking (e.g., data
collection, analysis, and presentation)
Indicated what teaching strategies were
useful to facilitate collaborative
e-learning
Reflectively commented on their previous
experience in planning and designing
instruction with ICTs
Indicated what competence teachers shall
have when planning and designing ICT-
infused instruction
Indicated how they made instruction
adaptively aligned to the goals of ICT-
infused instruction
Never considered the difference
between ICT-infused to traditional
teaching practice
No idea about what ICT tools can
bring to teaching practice
No idea about how to use ICTs to
support instructional management
Thought implementing ICTs in
instructional management caused
extra workload
Thought no learning effectiveness
differences between traditional and
ICT-infused instructions
Concerned about the impacts if ICTs
could not be handled properly in
instruction
Expressed how ICT tools impressed
students in teaching practices
Differentiated ICT-infused from
traditional teaching practices
Used basic word processors to
manage instructional resources
Rationalized how they used ICTs to
enhance their teaching practices
Described how they assisted students
who were low in academic
achievement with uses of ICTs
Described how they used different
ICTs to manage instructional
resources
Reflectively commented on how ICTs
changed teachers’ instructions
Described how they prepared or
handled in-class troubles with
solutions not impeding ICT-infused
instruction
Described how they customized their
ICT-infused instructional materials
with the collected resources

into the automatic content analysis software WordStat Data Triangulation

(Provalis Research 2005). This software used hierarchical
cluster analysis to categorize science teachers into the same
cluster with similar code patterns across the dimensions in
the TPACK-P framework. Based on the anticipated varia-
tion in participants and sample size, we first demanded
WordStat to categorize these teachers into three groups; the
results showed that teachers within groups shared similar
features but between groups shared distinct features.
Kruskal–Wallis test was later used to examine between-
group differences on these proficiency codes by knowledge
domains.
A semistructured interview is a good approach to mapping
out teachers’ TPACK-P since teachers’ craft knowledge is
not only personalized and situated but also longitudinally
developed. Teachers’ instructional performances in actual
classrooms can demonstrate their TPACK-P in teaching
scenarios. Therefore, we videotaped 50-min classes con-
ducted by three teachers whose interview data showed
features typical of the cluster in which they were auto-
matically categorized. These three teachers were told to
teach as usual, and that no purposeful preparation was

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Table 3 Descriptive results of science teachers grouped by TPACK-P

Dimension Cluster #1—technology- Cluster #2— Cluster #3—planning Z Interview score Importance
infusive (n = 18) transition (n = 10) and designing (n = 12) average ratings
M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) (range 0–4) M (SD) (range 0–5)

Assessment 2.94 (0.48) 2.58 (0.50) 2.00 (0.40) 18.23*** 2.57 (0.60) 4.46
Planning 2.99 (0.37) 2.41 (0.49) 2.73 (0.32) 10.12** 2.77 (0.45) 4.55
and designing
Teaching practice 2.75 (0.48) 2.40 (0.58) 2.17 (0.34) 10.21** 2.49 (0.52) 4.34
Average 2.89 (0.28) 2.47 (0.30) 2.30 (0.22)
** means a = 0.1, *** means a = 0.01

required. The classes to be videotaped were randomly

selected, but under the target teacher’s permission. We
analyzed the ways in which they used ICTs to assist their
instruction and student learning, in hopes not only that the
interview data could be triangulated, but also how the
teachers’ TPACK-P could be depicted in teaching
scenarios. Cluster #1

Findings

We found several patterns with the interview responses for

the science teachers with different TPACK-P proficiency
levels. First, the 40 science teachers were categorized into
groups based on the scores demonstrated in the three
dimensions. Second, we conducted a qualitative content
analysis to identify features of teachers within the three
different groups based on the automatic clustering results.

Teacher Types: Technology Infusion, Transition,

and Planning and Design
Cluster #2
The teachers’ responses were coded with ordinal scores
0–4 (the higher the score earned, the more elaborated they
were in teaching with technology). Table 3 summarizes the
overall mean scores and standard deviations (bottom row) Cluster #3
of the 40 participating teachers on the three dimensions.
The range of the mean scores (2.49–2.77) suggested that
these Taiwanese teachers who used technology in science
classes had TPACK-P proficiency between the levels of
simple adoption (Level 2) moving toward infusive appli-
cation (Level 3). Assuming an interval of ±1 standard Fig. 1 Dendrogram of the science teachers grouped with TPACK-P
deviation around these mean scores would suggest that
most (*67 %) of these teachers would be within the
Levels 2–3 range. categorizing these teachers into three clusters should be the
optimal outcome. The reasons were that two clusters
Characteristics of Science Teachers’ TPACK-P (cutoff line moving rightward) were less sensitive to tea-
cher differences and five clusters (cutoff line moving left-
According to the dendrogram (Fig. 1) yielded from the ward) made the size of the clusters varied greatly (4–14
automatic cluster analysis on teachers’ proficiency scores, teachers). Therefore, among the three clusters in terms of

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Table 4 Analysis of background of science teachers grouped by of ten) and almost all the earth science teachers (nine out of
TPACK-P ten) were classified into the TI group. Biology teachers (six
Group out of ten) and physics teachers (five out of ten) were
mainly classified into the PD group and the TR group,
Infusive Transition Planning
application (n = 10) and design respectively. One-half of the teachers with 11–15 years or
(n = 18) (n = 12) longer, either in terms of years in teaching and teaching
with ICTs, were identified as the TI group. Inspection of
Subject domain
e-learning award-winning records did not reveal a consis-
Biology 2 2 6
tent indicator for the proficiency of TPACK-P, which was
Chemistry 5 3 2
suspected due to the fact that the majority of these awards
Earth science 9 0 1 were for designing specific content learning materials
Physics 2 5 3 rather than demonstrating overall ICT-infused instruction
Years of overall teaching involving assessment and classroom practices.
6–10 5 6 5 Based on the automatic teacher classification results, a
11–15 6 1 3 post hoc qualitative review of the teachers’ responses was
[15 7 3 4 needed to check the results and to offer descriptive and
Years of teaching with ICTs supportive excerpts to differentiate among the three groups
1–5 4 3 3 of science teachers. The codes of the three knowledge areas
6–10 7 3 7 by the raters were used to generate illustrations for and
11–15 4 2 1 about the teachers in each group.
[5 3 2 1
Records of award-winning in e-learning instruction TI: Student-Centered Technology Implementation
Yes 9 6 7
No 9 4 5 Generally, the teachers in the TI group achieved higher
Gender levels because they tended to think about teaching with
Male 10 8 7 ICTs in a more student-centered manner. For example,
Female 8 2 5 teacher #23 pointed out the limitation of traditional
assessments and how ICTs can be compensatory in
assisting assessments.
T23: Tests with paper and pencil can also estimate
the distances apart from each other, teachers in Clusters #1
(students’) affections or something, right? But in
and #2 shared more similarity than they did with teachers
fact, this part will be exhausting (on paper-and-
in Cluster #3. The descriptive statistics of teachers’ profi-
pencil tests). With technology, not only for (more
ciency scores by groups were used to see how these three
learning) time, it can present (the assessment) in
groups differed from each other. As shown in Table 3,
more (appealing and) different manners. In that
teachers in Cluster #1 had higher mean scores, which were
way, (students) can (have) his/her own way to
near Level 3; we named this group as ‘‘Technology-Infu-
answer. For example, someone likes a movie clip,
sive, TI.’’ Cluster #3 was named the ‘‘Planning and Design
someone likes an animation or something. The
Emphasis, PD (planning and design)’’ group since it had a
animation may replace a large number of words in
fairly high mean score in the area of planning and design
the test, especially when the wording (in the tests)
while the scores in the other two dimensions were the
was (difficult). In that way, we may make students
lowest. Cluster #2 had mediocre mean scores and was
realize the assessment (can measure) their
adjacent to Cluster #1 in terms of the distance; therefore,
achievement more precisely
this cluster was named ‘‘Transition, TR (technology tran-
sitional).’’ Results from nonparametric analyses indicated This teacher also displayed his student-centered thinking
significant between-group differences on these three when designing their teaching to be ICT-embedded, which
knowledge areas (assessments: z = 18.23, p \ 0.001; was a typical feature representing teachers from the same
planning and design: z = 10.12, p \ 0.01; teaching prac- group. These teachers allowed students to learn with ICTs
tice: z = 10.21, p \ 0.01). Post hoc pairwise analyses and prioritized these self-learning opportunities. Some of
confirmed that the TI group had significant higher scores them even reached the highest level (coded as ‘‘4—self-
than the other two groups on different dimensions. evaluation’’) in the assessment dimension since they
Table 4 presents the backgrounds of the teachers in the replied that they had experience designing student-centered
three groups. One-half of the chemistry teachers (five out software for learning and evaluation purposes.

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T23: (In designing teaching,) I will first consider whether
this tool is proper or not, as well as whether
students have corresponding equipment to use in
learning, like e-schoolbag (mobile learning
equipment) or something. As a result, when the
teacher designs some learning software (that is)
only available or executable on some platform or
browser, this may detract from students’
participation. We should consider other tools or
interface (to avoid) falling into such situations
For TI teachers, their behaviors in classroom manage-
ment were greatly influenced by their ways of student-
centered thinking. They knew what and how synchronous
and asynchronous learning tools might be helpful to stu-
dent learning, especially for extending teacher–student
interactions beyond classrooms. However, though being
aware of how these ICTs might be useful to facilitate
online interaction, very few of them would like to engage
these tools in their classrooms after considering the time
and energy for maintenance.
T23: We may not apply this (online communication) in
normal class. To me, if you want to establish a blog
or forum, you must spend time to maintain it. Yes, I
am sure such kind of communication is the
teachers’ responsibility. Furthermore, the
administrator (the teacher) must be good at
organizing students’ statements, discussion, and
reveal the answers from different viewpoints. For
now, I do not think there is a good platform for
doing this. Facebook may be a possibility, but for
most situations students may just chat, (using a)
kind of instant communication (that is) hard to use
for learning purposes
T23 was a high school teacher who had been teaching
earth science for 10–15 years. He was invited to join the
high school earth science writing community and also was
the author of a popular science book about astronomical
observation. Throughout his lecture, he tried to build up
students’ concepts of star movement and time measure-
ment with a predict–observe–explain (POE) strategy and
some hands-on activities. To help the students understand
whether and how the stars moved, he offered each student a
paper astrolabe, guided them to observe the positions of the
Big Dipper at different points of time within a 1-year time
frame, and then asked students to mark the observed points
on tracing paper over the astrolabe. Orbit drawing is one
common traditional strategy that teachers use to introduce
students to concepts such as star movement and how to
locate the North Star, but the process is quite complicated
when considering different variables such as the changing
seasons, and the angles between the Big Dipper and the
85
north celestial pole. Therefore, he used PowerPoint slides
to help his instruction stay organized and assist students in
visualizing how the orbiting system worked. He encour-
aged his students to personalize the paper workbooks they
were working on just like how they did to their e-schoolbag
by making their own notes, rather than relying solely on the
teacher’s slides. He used a long-exposure photograph that
showed how the North Star stayed fixed as other stars rose
and set over the course of a night as the Earth rotated. By
pointing at two photos of star movement that he took and
included in trade books, he explained to students how these
photographs were taken and with what necessary equip-
ment. More than simple static photographs, he even sim-
ulated the stars’ regular orbit by pointing his laser pen
vertically to circulate around the ceiling, walls, and floor of
the classroom. Since important information and steps for
conceptualizing star orbits were highlighted with different
colors or animation in his slides. He might not engage
diverse uses of ICTs in his instruction, but he did display
his TPACK-P by taking photographs with high-tech digital
cameras and delivering the subject content with appropriate
uses of the technology available. Both his instructional
guidance (i.e., POE) and the learning activity he designed
(i.e., hands-on drawing) were tailored to his students’
conceptual construction.
TR: Teacher-Centered Technology Implementation
Teachers in the TR group tended to be more teacher-cen-
tered in their TPACK-P. They had a basic understanding of
ICT-infused assessments, but they still preferred traditional
paper-and-pencil formats. Their long-term acquaintance
with traditional assessments might inhibit them from trying
to probe how ICTs would assist teachers to evaluate stu-
dent performance or the quality of their own instruction.
They appeared to be more subjective when being asked
how ICTs could be useful to its application on assessments.
T17: Utilizing technologies in assessment is simply
making the test like a game
T33: Students still need to experience the calculation in
tests, somehow just with a more funny way
T6: I will not imagine that technology is able to provide
significant assistance for summative evaluation
because this involves the problematic equity of
testing with technologies
Such subjectivity or inflexible beliefs about teaching
with ICTs were also observed in their curriculum planning
and designing. Hence, these types of responses were coded
at lower level (coded as ‘‘2—simple Adoption’’) of
TPACK-P.
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T6: Besides willingness, a teacher’s capability (can be a
main reason that determines whether a teacher uses
ICTs to assist their instruction.)…… If it is a
situation where I am willing but unable to
(implement ICTs into class), I will consult other
biology teachers who engage ICT-implemented
instruction, other teachers with whom I am
familiar, or teachers on the IT team. However, I
have to admit that (I will not do it) until someone
forces me to
T6: I have not (tried any types of online classrooms),
since honestly speaking I have concerns about
Internet (safety). I still feel quite insecure not only
with the network hard drives but also the Cloud
Drive, so I have not tried (organizing digital learning
materials online)
T6 had been a biology teacher in a middle school for
6–10 years. His 50-min instructional clip was composed of
three student group presentations (15 min for total), a
lecture about animals and plants (25 min), and a presen-
tation of the scientific research methods (10 min). Each
group made a presentation regarding one animal (i.e.,
orange oakleaf butterflies, Himalayan rabbits, and bats)
with PowerPoint slides, followed up with some clarifica-
tion questions that T6 raised to help the presenters and the
other students learn more about the animals. He also
reminded his students to be careful of the sources of online
information. In his own lecture on animals, he imple-
mented three photographs and three video clips in a total of
five slides to help students visualize the target animals and
plants. He also juxtaposed the images for students to make
comparisons and paused videos whenever explanations
were necessary. Throughout the 50-min class, he used the
strategy of ‘‘questioning’’ quite frequently, and his students
were very attentive to these questions and showed high
response rates. The types of questions included inquiring
with his students about their prior knowledge, observa-
tional questions on the photographs and videos, and
inductive inference-making on animal behavior. To sum
up, T6 showed his willingness to use ICTs in his class, but
profound use of ICT tools with student-centered teaching
strategies could further elaborate his TPACK-P.
PD: Planning and Designing Focused TPACK
The PD group shared lower similarity with the TI and TR
groups (Fig. 1). A more diverse pattern of codes and
responses was found among teachers in the PD group.
Table 3 showed their high level of planning and designing
when teaching with ICTs but not on applying ICTs in
assessment and teaching practice. Qualitative data sug-
gested that they could be unfamiliar about or not confident
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J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
with using ICTs in the classroom. Some other external
factors, like time pressure or tight curriculum schedule,
appeared to be reasons discouraging their ICT implemen-
tation in classrooms.
T35: I have never used online assessments……Actually,
I have seen online assessments before but I have
never tried brining my students to the computer
classroom (for assessment purposes)
When asked about planning and designing teaching with
ICTs, teachers in the PD group knew about common types
of student misunderstandings and learning difficulties and
how ICTs could assist teachers to solve these problems.
They were able to rationalize why ICTs were important in
helping them achieve instructional goals and meeting stu-
dent needs in curriculum design. However, such level
of understanding was not found when asked about
ICT-supported assessments or actual teaching practices.
T35: (As for the main factor for me to use technology in
class), I would like my students to understand (the
concepts) and not fall asleep, since some concepts
are too abstract to understand. Second, I felt my
instruction saved time when technology was
implemented; otherwise, I would need to spend
time working on extra verbal descriptions and
analogical examples to help students understand. In
fact, these (traditional) approaches were more
likely to bring misconceptions
T35 taught physics and chemistry in middle school for
10–15 years. In the collected video clip, she taught the
concept of acceleration by lecturing about the differences
between speed and velocity, introducing related formulas,
playing a clip about the speed meter change in a moving
subway train, and guiding students to draw x–t charts of the
speed change. It was a Youtube clip but the resolution was
bad. The reason why she chose the clip was likely that the
subway train in the clip ran through their school area. In
her first play of the clip, she guided her students to observe
the changes shown on the meter and then explained what it
meant when the meter stayed constant, or the numbers
increased or decreased. After making sure that all her
students had acquired a basic understanding of the speed
change, she played the clip again and asked each student to
jot down every 3 s the current speed the meter showed.
These students were later required to make their own
x–t chart by mapping the numbers on mesh screen sheets.
However, since the three-second intervals were set by
students who were asked to silently count down in heads,
the x–t charts that each student generated were somewhat
different. To wrap up the class, T38 plotted three kinds of
curves (i.e., upward, stable, and downward) in a x–t chart
and made necessary explanations, which functioned like a
J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
summary of the possible curves the students might have.
For T35’s uses of ICTs to assist her instruction, she showed
a significant amount of reliance on her chalk and talk
without also using alternative technological tool other than
the speed meter clip. Due to the lack of remote controls,
she also asked a student to play the clip and plot his speed
change records in Microsoft Paint. She demonstrated her
knowledge and ability to design classes where technology
was used enhance students’ comprehension; however, her
implementation could be further refined in terms of
knowledge construction if alternative ICTs were appro-
priately used with pedagogical considerations.
Discussion
Shulman’s (1986) believed professional teachers or
reflective practitioners should be able to ‘‘not only of
practicing and understanding his or her craft, but of com-
municating the reasons for professional decisions and
actions to others’’ (p. 13). Clearly, professionals refer to
those who are able to decide what to do based on current
conditions and justify their choices and practices. This
study documents science teachers’ proficiency in TPACK-P
through interviewing them about their knowledge and
their experiences. Three types of teachers with different
TPACK-P proficiency levels were identified through clus-
ter analysis of the codes from their interview data. We will
discuss the gaps between what knowledge science teachers
were expected to develop (Yeh et al. 2014) and what they
really developed (this study) in an attempt to see what we
can and should do to help science teachers develop and
apply their TPACK in practical teaching contexts.
Teaching is an expertise that matures as actual teaching
experience increases, during which teachers’ thinking and
instruction are integrated and transformed (Angeli and
Valanides 2009; Mishra and Koehler 2006). Schneider and
Plasman (2011) explored the developmental sequence of
novice to adaptive teachers in terms of their PCK. They
found that some midcareer teachers became adaptive
teachers since they were responsive and accommodating to
students’ learning needs, while some teachers became
routine in their teaching expertise and did not attend
properly to students’ actual needs. Five to ten years of
teaching experience may not be necessary for becoming
adaptive teachers, but consideration of students’ learning
needs in instruction is necessary. Similar results were also
found in the current study where teachers in the TI group
were more student-centered with consistently highest
scores in three different areas of TPACK-P. Teachers in the
TR and PD groups seemed more teacher-centered in using
ICTs since they were more subjective and less flexible in
their ICT implementation. A majority of teachers in the TI
87
group was found likely to teach with ICTs within the first
11 years of teaching experience. Consequently, we claim
that teachers’ TPACK-P is likely to mature as they become
more student-centered and with more teaching experience,
although it might take a decade to be reflected in their
TPACK-P proficiency.
TPACK-P (Yeh et al. 2014) refers to the practical
knowledge framework that science teachers develop for
and from using ICTs to assist their instruction. Based on
the Delphi survey results, expert teachers rated curriculum
design as the knowledge set with highest importance rating,
followed by assessments and practical teaching. A similar
trend was also found when we analyzed current science
teachers’ proficiency in using ICTs to assist their instruc-
tion. Compared with traditional paper-to-pencil formats,
the flexible formats that electronic assessments (e.g.,
multimedia-supported, e-portfolio, and online assessment)
offer enable teachers to construct test items to probe stu-
dents’ learning progress from different aspects or on one
aspect more thoroughly. However, electronic assessment
construction demands that teachers develop knowledge
other than PCK, such as being able to make multimedia-
supported representations, familiarizing themselves with
features and dependability of assessment channels and
systems, and presenting possible feedbacks that can adap-
tively help students (Gipps 2005; Glasson and McKenzie
1999). It is an art to seek a balanced mapping among
concepts and scientific abilities to be evaluated and the
formats that best support static, dynamic, or interactive
evaluative purposes. This study also found teachers less
proficient on topics of classroom management and orga-
nization, especially compared to their comments on PK and
knowledge of students (Five and Buehl 2008). Being able
to troubleshoot technical problems that happen in the
classroom could be a major challenge for teachers in the
journey to pursue classroom digitalization (Ping Lim et al.
2005). These findings indicated that curriculum design and
knowledge delivery were teachers’ priority in implement-
ing ICTs into instruction. For helping teachers to engage
constant comprehension checkups or evaluations and
classroom management with benefits that ICTs can bring to
student learning, preparing teachers with friendly and
reliable platforms (e.g., multimedia database and learning
management system) would be necessary for motivating
and sustaining teachers to teach with ICTs.
The science teachers’ overall proficiency level in this
study was approximately at the level of adopting, not in-
fusive or innovative implementation. Making the transition
toward these higher levels should be a target for future
teacher education and professional learning programs.
ICTs should not be merely used as tools for representing
scientific phenomena or concepts or refreshing students’
learning experiences; instead, ICTs can be used to help
123
88
construct difficult-to-learn and abstract ideas and to pro-
mote higher-order thinking ability. This will require that
teachers know about the epistemic potentials of ICTs and
carefully map these functions (i.e., informative, situating,
constructive, and communicative) into student learning
activities (Ping Lim and Yong Tay 2003). Explicit dem-
onstrations of how ICTs can be implemented into teaching
and learning should be offered; instructional artifact
designing and microteaching can be activities that integrate
and contextualize teachers’ design thinking and actual
teaching practice with ICTs (Yeh et al. in press). In fact,
many practicing teachers are still learners when new ICTs
are introduced to education as they have not experienced
the freedom and flexibility of these innovations in their
own learning. Other factors (e.g., confidence and attitude
toward change) can contribute to and support the quality of
teachers’ ICT implementation (Bingimlas 2009). The tea-
cher-centered comments that the TR and PD groups made
toward ICT implementation can be suspected to either not
being convinced of the benefits of ICTs or being aware of
but lacking actual practical experience. Teachers’ knowl-
edge might not be fully reflected in their teaching (Le-
derman 1999) but what they believe might (Ertmer 2005;
Nespor 1987; Richardson 1996; Sadaf et al. 2012). Suc-
cessful mastery experience can positively reward teachers’
psychological quality in teaching, such as science teaching
self-efficacy (Klassen et al. 2010; Lumpe et al. 2012) and
attitudes and beliefs (Hofer 2000; Palmer 2002). The more
successful teaching experiences that teachers accumulate,
the more resources they can use to build their confidence
for accomplishing instructional tasks, such as tackling the
complexity when teaching with ICT.
Limitation
This interview study made procedural decisions about the
participants and data sources that limited the data inter-
pretation and richness of the findings. Teachers who self-
reported as nonusers of ICTs in instruction were excluded
from the sample since TPACK-P is assumed to develop
with teachers’ knowledge about and experiences with using
ICTs. Collecting and analyzing different data from teach-
ers’ lesson plans, artifacts, or teaching performances could
have enriched our findings on the development of teachers’
TPACK-P, but it is hard for teachers to rationalize them-
selves in these performance. Therefore, we chose a semi-
structured interview protocol to guide teachers to comment
on how ICTs could be applied within educational contexts,
revealing their knowledge, design thinking, and personal
perspectives. Studies that appraise teachers’ actual uses of
technology to assist their instruction shall reveal TPACK-P
from real classroom settings.
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J Sci Educ Technol (2015) 24:78–90
Conclusions
TPACK-P refers to the set of unified knowledge that blends
not only teachers’ basic knowledge of content, pedagogy,
and technology but also their longitudinal practical expe-
riences when teaching with ICTs. The nature of TPACK-P,
which refines in context and with actual experience, does
not favor inservice teachers or preservice teachers in terms
of knowledge development. Preservice teachers may come
with more facileness in ICTs and more experience seeing
how ICTs are implemented to their learning and life;
inservice teachers are familiar with what and how students
learn but they need patience to see and learn how ICTs can
be supportive to education. This study further identifies
being responsive to students’ learning needs as the critical
feature that teachers with higher TPACK-P proficiency
shared. Being responsive to student needs, in fact, is not
only fundamental whether ICTs are infused but also echoes
to the purpose why ICTs are used in instruction. Positive
feedback from student learning and instructional effects
can sustain teachers’ beliefs and reinforce teachers’ con-
tinuous endeavors figuring out what and how ICTs can best
support instruction. Showing models of how ICTs can
seamlessly support instruction can help teachers to con-
ceptualize how ICTs are useful to instruction, but engaging
teachers to share or work on the same ICT implementations
would be the key factor further sustaining teachers’ con-
tinuous honing of their TPACK-P. With the prevalence of
technology in classrooms and the rising needs for TPACK,
it is the era for teachers to elaborate the quality of their
ICT-infused instruction, rather than merely pursuing the
goal of engaging ICTs into classrooms.
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