Source: Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 36:3, 166-184
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
The study’s purpose was to investigate whether two different pedagogical strategies, flipped classroom (FC) and flipped team-based learning (FTBL), had different impacts on preservice teachers’ TPACK, attitudes, self-efficacy, and perceptions of teamwork in a stand-alone educational technology course.
Five research questions were investigated:
1. Are there differences in preservice teachers’ self-reported TPACK, attitudes, and self-efficacy scores in each section before and after taking the course?
2. Are there differences in the TPACK, attitudes, and self-efficacy scores for those preservice teachers enrolled in an FTBL section compared to the scores of preservice teachers in the FC section?
3. What are preservice teachers’ perceptions of teamwork after taking the course with or without using the FTBL pedagogical strategy?
4. Are there differences in preservice teachers’ lesson idea scores for those enrolled in an FTBL section compared to the scores of those enrolled in the FC section?
5. Are there associations among preservice teachers’ TPACK, attitudes, self-efficacy, modeling, and lesson idea scores?
Methods
Research context
This research was conducted in a teacher education program at a southeastern university in the United States.
The current research was carried out in the stand-alone educational technology course designed especially for preservice teachers enrolled in the Middle Grades Education program during the spring 2019 semester.
This course had two sections.
A course coordinator, who was a researcher of this study, designed the curriculum and ensured that the students in these two sections learned the same content.
An instructor taught the second section of the course and worked with the coordinator on making needed changes during the semester.
Course design
The stand-alone educational technology course utilized a from TPK to TPACK instructional model.
The instructors utilized a flipped classroom method to maximize the limited time this course had (Velegol et al., 2015). Students first learned from the online materials through the online modules.
Then students took a content quiz to gauge their understanding and self-evaluate their preparation for the class.
After this, preservice teachers attended weekly face-to-face sessions, which consisted of lectures, discussions, activities, and hands-on projects.
For pedagogical strategies, one instructor utilized FTBL pedagogy (Jaramillo Cherrez & Jin, 2018), while the other instructor only used the FC method.
The flipped online modules had the same contents.
The major assignments were the same.
The instructors used the same instructional slides during the face-to-face sections.
The only difference was the team component.
In the section using FTBL, preservice teachers self-selected their teams during the first week and stayed with their team members throughout the semester.
Some FTBL strategies were used to transform the in-class activities, such as team quizzes, team discussions, peer review sessions, and team application activities.
In the section using FC only, preservice teachers worked individually during the same activities in class throughout the semester.
Participants
Thirty-two preservice teachers (Section 1: 13, 40.6%, Section 2: 19, 59.4%) voluntarily participated in this study.
Survey instruments and data collection
Three surveys were used in this study (Bickelhaupt et al., 2017; Selwyn, 1997; Schmidt et al., 2009; Tondeur et al., 2017).
Links to the TPACK, attitudes, and self-efficacy surveys were sent through the learning management system at the beginning and end of the spring 2019 semester.
The link to the team-based learning (TBL) survey was sent at the end of the semester.
For measuring preservice teachers’ TPACK, a validated survey called Survey of Pre-Service Teachers’ Knowledge of Teaching and Technology was used (Schmidt et al., 2009).
For measuring preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology and self-efficacy of technology, two surveys were combined into one, the Computer Attitude Scale (CAS) and Pre-Service Teachers’ ICT Competencies (Selwyn, 1997; Tondeur et al., 2017).
For measuring preservice teachers’ perceptions of teamwork, a survey called Student TBL Learning Experience Survey was used (Bickelhaupt et al., 2017).
The researchers also collected qualitative data from preservice teachers’ lesson ideas.
The lesson ideas are a part of the instructional technology portfolio assignment, which demonstrates preservice teachers’ applications of education technology topics.
Discussion
Preservice teachers’ TPACK, attitudes, self-efficacy, and their associations
The overall results showed that all preservice teachers’ post scores were higher than their pre scores no matter which sections they enrolled in.
Moreover, PK and self-efficacy beliefs showed statistically significant differences with large effect sizes in both sections.
This result indicated that both pedagogical strategies may be promising in developing preservice teachers’ PK and self-efficacy beliefs.
Surprisingly, there were no statistically significant differences in most TPACK and attitude constructs.
One possible reason might be that the sample size was small.
Another possible reason might be the lopsided nature of middle grades preservice teachers’ TPACK in different content areas.
The post-TPACK score was strongly correlated to the constructs associated with the attitudes and modeling.
This result indicated that attitude constructs were critical in developing not only preservice teachers’ TPACK but also their intentions for future technology use and integration (Tondeur et al., 2017).
Meanwhile, this result justified that TPACK scores were not the only construct that indicated preservice teachers’ readiness for technology integration.
Other variables should be considered as well (Holland & Piper, 2016; Kavanoz et al., 2015; Tondeur et al., 2017).
The researchers also found that several attitude-related constructs had strong correlations with the modeling that preservice teachers received.
Since preservice teachers’ attitudes toward technology use and integration and the modeling they receive are critical to their TPACK development and future technology integration intentions, teacher educators should expose preservice teachers to effective educational technology use and integration early on.
Impact of the pedagogical strategies
The overall results showed that preservice teachers enrolled in the FTBL section had higher post scores compared to their own pre scores.
Moreover, their post scores were higher compared to the post scores of preservice teachers in the FC section.
In this study, peer learning within the professional learning communities was the primary approach used and seemed to be a positive method for developing preservice teachers’ various knowledge and perceptions even though they entered the course with different amounts of prior knowledge, experiences, attitudes, and beliefs.
The researchers also want to caution readers that no statistically significant differences were found in the scores between the FTBL and FC sections.
These results indicated that this active learning pedagogy, FTBL, might have some potential for the stand-alone educational technology course.
However, current results could not sufficiently support that it had more effectiveness compared to FC.
Future research with a larger sample size should be conducted.
In the end, the researchers want to recommend both pedagogical strategies for their potentials in narrowing the gap between groups of preservice teachers with different amounts of prior knowledge and experiences and developing preservice TPACK in a stand-alone education technology course (Koh & Chai, 2014)
References
Bickelhaupt, S. E., Dorius, C., Artz, G., Bender, H., Dorneich, M., Gahn, S., … Smiley-Oyen, A. (2017). Student learning and motivation in team-based learning classrooms: The development of a survey instrument. Manuscript in preparation.
Holland, D. D., & Piper, R. T. (2016). A technology integration education (tie) model for millennial preservice teachers: exploring the canonical correlation relationships among attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral controls, motivation, and technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) competencies. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 48(3), 212–226.
Jaramillo Cherrez, N. V., & Jin, Y. (2018). Cultivating instructor’s reflective practices: “The reality of what I experienced is I wish I had thought about these things, but I didn’t, so live and learn”. Paper presented at the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Annual Conference. Washington, D.C., United States.
Kavanoz, S., Yuksel, H., & Ozcan, E. (2015). Pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions on WEB pedagogical content knowledge. Computers & Education, 85, 94–101.
Koh, J. H. L., & Chai, C. S. (2014). Teacher clusters and their perceptions of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) development through ICT lesson design. Computers & Education, 70, 222–232.
Schmidt, D., Baran, E., Thompson, A., Mishra, P., Koehler, M., & Shin, T. (2009). Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK): The development and validation of an assessment instrument for pre-service teachers. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(2), 123–149.
Selwyn, N. (1997). Students’ attitudes toward computers: Validation of a computer attitude scale for 16–19 education. Computers & Education, 28(1), 35–41.
Tondeur, J., Scherer, R., Siddiq, F., & Baran, E. (2017). A comprehensive investigation of TPACK within pre-service teachers’ ICT profiles: Mind the gap. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 33(3), 46–60.
Velegol, S. B., Zappe, S. E., & Mahoney, E. (2015). The evolution of a flipped classroom: Evidence-Based recommendations. Advances in Engineering Education, 4(3), 1–37.