The role of a virtual internship in developing preservice teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge

Abstract

Considering that teaching is a complex and multifaceted practice taking place in ill structured and dynamic environments, it is very important for individuals who profess in teaching to learn how to apply the interweaving and sophisticated interactivity between the three sources of teacher knowledge, which are content, pedagogy and technology. Based on Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) TPACK framework, this study examined preservice teachers’ TPACK development in the context of a virtual internship named ‘School of the Future’. The School of the Future (STF) is an 8-week virtual internship/ epistemic game designed to develop the TPACK of preservice teachers. A quantitative pre and posttest quasi-experimental research design aided by qualitative data was employed. Seventy-four preservice teachers participated in this study. TPACK development was measured using a survey adapted from the Survey of Preservice Teachers' Knowledge of Teaching and Technology (Schmidt et al., 2009) and the reflections written by the participants. It was anticipated that the virtual internship STF would support TPACK development of preservice teachers by making a difference from the case of its non-use. The results indicated no significant difference in the TPACK development of the participants who participated in the STF and those who did not. However, the participants who participated in the STF significantly increased their knowledge in all TPACK domains, except the CK domain. The qualitative analysis of the written reflections also supported the findings from the survey analysis by pointing development in the TPACK of the preservice teachers.