Exploring primary school teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) in online collaborative discourse: An epistemic network analysis

Abstract

Abstract The contextual influences on technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) enactment and the method of TPACK assessment remain to be important research topics. Discourse data of 81 teachers in an online professional learning community were collected and analyzed based on the framework of TPACK. Frequency distribution and time series characteristics of teachers’ knowledge domains were analyzed. In addition, epistemic network analysis was used to compare the epistemic network characteristics of teachers in the higher‐score and the lower‐score groups, different age groups, and post and reply groups. Results showed that teachers’ knowledge domains enacted in the context of online discourse were mainly pedagogical content knowledge and general pedagogical knowledge. The teachers in the higher‐score group had a rich, organized and flexible knowledge structure of TPACK. Younger teachers had more connections between pedagogical knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge, while senior teachers had more connections between technological knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. The teachers in the reply group had more connections among the different categories of knowledge as compared to the post group. Finally, implications, limitations and future research were discussed.