Primary Teachers' Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge

Abstract

The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) poses new educational challenges for teachers, to which it can respond from a consistent training model. This study has as its aim to analyze the technological, pedagogical and content knowledge needed for Primary Education teachers to integrate ICTs into teaching. A research work based on a quantitative non-experimental methodology which involved 224 Preschool and Primary Education teachers working in the province of Alicante (Spain) was performed with that aim. The important results showed that teachers are more knowledgeable in the pedagogical and content fields than in technology, which means that their level of technological knowledge does not suffice to integrate ICTs into their teaching tasks. Significant differences were additionally identified between gender and years of experience, together with the relationship between the fun use of technology and the knowledge of its essential aspects. Our findings confirm the need for a digital literacy campaign addressed to teachers, involving not only a technological type of training but also an overall pedagogical and content approach. This is in keeping with the TPACK model (Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge), which appears as a reference framework to be taken into account when it comes to teachers’ professional development and its connection with the teaching-learning processes in the classroom wherever Information and Communication Technologies are present..