Interrelationship between levels of digital competences and Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK): a preliminary study with Polish academic teachers

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to develop and to validate a study tool for determining the levels of academic teachers’ digital competence regarding the TPACK framework and self-reflection questionnaire of the European Competence Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators in the context of higher education. The classic 7-factor TPACK model was changed to a 2-factor model (Pedagogical and Technological Knowledge). A survey was administered to 103 academic teachers from Polish universities. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the goodness-of-fit for the 2-factor TPACK model for higher education studies and internal consistency of the study survey. Descriptive analysis indicated a significant negative correlation between some demographic variables and domains from both factors. However, some positive associations with certain variables from the professional background were also noticed. Implications for professional development and suggestions regarding teachers’ digital competences and TPACK are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic teachers
• study tool
• digital competence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Furthermore, owing to the sample size close to N_min, the above-mentioned analyses were performed again using the Diagonally Weighted Least Squares (DWLS) estimator recommended for relatively small samples (Flora & Curran, 2004, JASP software – Mplus emulator), independent of the distribution of variables included in the analysis. Path coefficients were estimated based on bootstrap samples = 5000. The obtained results turned out to be analogous to the previous results obtained with the use of the Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimator. The means for the coefficients of the paths linking areas and F1 were 0.784 and 0.779 for the ML and DWLS estimator, respectively, while for the F2 factor and related areas it was 0.797 and 0.745 for the ML and DWLS estimator, respectively.

2. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (Nataliia Demeshkant) upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nataliia Demeshkant

Nataliia Demeshkant, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Educational Sciences at the Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland. Her research focuses on the development and improving of teacher training programmes, especially on teacher training in higher education, and the educational uses of ICT in environmental and health education. She is currently carrying out research on the digital competences of teachers and student teachers. She has published nationally and internationally on those topics.

Sławomir Trusz

Sławomir Trusz, PhD., is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Educational Sciences at the Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland. His leading areas of interest are the effects of intra- and inter-personal expectancies and educational self-fulfiling prophecy mechanisms. His recent studies focused on stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination in relation to children with oncological disease. He co-authored the book Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Expectancies (Routledge, 2016).

Katarzyna Potyrała

Katarzyna Potyrała, PhD., is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Educational Sciences at the Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland. Her research focuses on didactic transformation of knowledge, education for sustainable development, health education and teacher training. She has authored over 200 scientific publications in Polish, English and French, and she is the scientific editor of several monographs and journals.