The value of CK, PK, and PCK in professional development programs predicted by the progressive beliefs of elementary school teachers

ABSTRACT

Teachers’ professional development (PD) receives a great deal of attention in current educational settings. However, research has shown that many teachers hesitate to attend PD programs. In this study, data were collected from 270 elementary school teachers and were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to examine their intention to attend the weekly PD programs on Wednesday afternoons (PDWAP). The results revealed that the participants value the acquisition of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) more than they value pedagogical knowledge (PK) and content knowledge (CK) because of the expected usefulness of each for teaching. Moreover, the results of this study have implications for PD program design, and call for a stronger focus on PCK.

AbbreviationAdjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI); Analysis of Moment Structures(AMOS); average variance (AVE); Chi-square(); content knowledge (CK); continuing professional development (CPD); Comparative Fit Index (CFI); degree of freedom (df); expectancy-value theory (EVT); Goodness of Fit Index (GFI); Incremental Fit Index (IFI); Mean(M); Parsimonious Goodness of Fit Index (PGFI); Parsimonious Normed Fit Index (PNFI); Parsimonious comparative-fit-index (PCFI); pedagogical content knowledge (PCK); pedagogical knowledge (PK); professional development (PD); professional development programs on Wednesday afternoons (PDWAP); Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA); standard deviation (SD); structural equation modeling (SEM); square of multiple correlation coefficients (R2); Teaching Beliefs Survey (TBS); theory of planned behavior (TPB); Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI); United Kingdom (UK)

KEYWORDS:

• Professional development
• theory of planned behavior
• pedagogical content knowledge
• content knowledge
• teacher beliefs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the This research is supported by the “Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences” and “Higher Education Sprout Project” of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan, R.O.C.

Notes on contributors

Ming-Yueh Hwang

Ming-Yueh Hwang is a professor with an interest in education; she is a professor in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education at National Taiwan Normal University and a member of the Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences.

Jon-Chao Hong

Jon-Chao Hong is a professor with an interest in computer science; he is a professor in the Department of Industrial Education at National Taiwan Normal University and a member of the Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences. 

Yung-Wei Hao

Yung-Wei Hao is a professor with an interest in education; she is a professor in the Department of Education in National Taiwan Normal University.