113

Correlation between technological,

pedagogical, and content knowledge
(TPACK) and its components among
in-service Mathematics Educators
Victor V. Hafalla Jr., REE, MAAS
School of Engineering and Architecture
email: vicwin123@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to determine the in-service Mathematics educators’

extent of knowledge on TPACK and its components and find the
degree of correlation among the TPACK and its components. The
study is a descriptive-quantitative research in nature using a survey
questionnaire administered to 36 respondents representing 67.92%
of the targeted sample as identified by their respective deans and
school heads. Results indicated that the respondents have “quite
complete knowledge” (QK) in technology, content and pedagogy
(TK, CK, PK) and in integrating their pedagogy, technology, and
content knowledge (TPK, TCK, PCK, TPACK). However, subsequent
analysis revealed that the respondents have low scores in content
knowledge (CK) as compared to the other knowledge components.
Specifically, they have low scores in “solving a technical problem
with a computer”, “following recent computer technologies”, and
“applying different learning theories and approaches”, implying
that most of the respondents are still “traditional” in their methods

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of teaching Mathematics. Correlation analysis revealed significant

positive correlation at the 0.01 level among the different components
of TPACK suggesting a holistic approach in studying the phenomena
and in developing strategies for teaching training.

KEYWORDS
TPACK, educational technology, mathematics educators, correlation

INTRODUCTION

A
great deal of research exist connecting instructional
design to positions on constructivist learning (Ertmer &
Newby, 1993; Cooper, 1993). This suggests that learning
environments of students should be centered on the
learners’ talents and interests by providing them with opportunities
for educational explorations through the use of instructional
technologies. As Brooks and Brooks (1993) found in their study,
the combined researches of Piaget, Vygotsky, Dewey, and Bruner
support learning environments and activities that are developed to
allow for whole-to-part learning with big ideas, pursuit of student
questions, use of manipulative materials (such as computers and
digital media), and the viewing of students as thinkers who are
emerging at different rates.

While technology integration in the classroom is a

desirable move, it is, however, fraught with pitfalls. Culp, Honey,
and Mandinach (2003) found out that integrating technology into
the teaching/learning process is not an easy task. They concluded
that the teachers were not comfortable with the use of these
technologies and there was a great lack of resources in schools.
Zhao and Conway (2001) also reported several troubling aspects of
technology implementation in the classroom. According to them,
these included a propensity to favor innovative technologies over

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more established media, an assumption that reform was inevitably

accompanied by technology implementation and the premium upon
improved student test scores with substantially less attention given to
improving teaching for understanding. Further, Bucci, Copenhaver,
Johnson, Lehman, and O’Brien (2003) found in their explorations
of technology integration in education through the Technology
Teaching Lab (TTL) program that for technology integration in
the classroom to be successful, technology connection must fit the
resources, program demands, and theoretical framework.

However, while technology integration in the classroom

is a debatable topic, it cannot be overemphasized that its benefits,
in the long run, outweigh its cons. For example, Pea (1986) found
that computers can be used to enhance students’ knowledge of
Mathematics, focusing on what can be done above and beyond
with pencil and paper alone. Further, Lajoie (1993) found that there
are a number of potential benefits of using technological tools for
instruction in an educational setting such as helping to support
cognitive processes by reducing the memory load of a student and
by encouraging awareness of the problem-solving process, sharing
the cognitive load by reducing the time that students spend on
computation, allowing students to engage in Mathematics that would
otherwise be out of reach, thereby stretching students’ opportunities
and supporting logical reasoning and hypothesis testing by allowing
students to test conjectures easily.

From the preceding discussions, it can be deduced that

integrating technology into the curriculum is not an easy task.
According to Koehler and Mishra (2009), there is no “one best way”
to integrate technology into the curriculum. Rather, “integration
efforts should be creatively designed or structured for particular
subject matter ideas in specific classroom contexts” according to
them. Honoring the idea that teaching with technology is a complex,
ill-structured task, they proposed that understanding approaches to
successful technology integration requires educators to develop new

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ways of comprehending and accommodating this complexity. Using

Shulman’s construct of pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK),
they included technology knowledge to propose the technological,
pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) as a framework to
effective teaching with technology (Figure 1). According to Koehler
and Mishra (2006, 2009), TPACK is an emergent form of knowledge
that goes beyond all three “core” components (content, pedagogy, and
technology). It is an understanding that emerges from interactions
among content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge (Koehler &
Mishra, 2009; Koehler, Mishra, Bouck, DeSchryver, Kereluik, Shin,
& Wolf, 2011; Koehler, Shin, & Mishra, 2012).

TPACK is suggested as effective teaching with technology.

According to Koehler et al. (2007), developing and implementing
successful teaching requires an understanding of how technology is
related to pedagogy and content. Although the importance of the
TPACK is clear, extensive research on this type of knowledge has
not been conducted yet (Strawhecker, 2005).

Figure 1. The TPACK framework (Koehler & Mishra, 2009)

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Given the unmistakable presence of technology in teaching,

one cannot help but wonder how these devices have influenced
educational practices, especially in Mathematics education. Many
of the technologies currently in use in Mathematics subjects are
computing devices and digital technologies, and there is a need to
evaluate the appropriateness of these technologies as it pervades the
classroom and influence mathematics education practices. Further,
since teachers have been characterized as gatekeepers because they
decide what technologies may enter into the classroom and how they
can be used (Cuban, 1986; Lei, 2009; Noble, 1996), there is a need to
evaluate how they integrate their knowledge in content, technology,
and pedagogy to their teaching methods and classroom management
practices. This study determined the extent of knowledge of in-
service Mathematics educators’ of the University of Baguio on
TPACK and its components to partially address the concerns
mentioned in literature. Understanding where mathematics educators
are regarding their level of knowledge in TPACK is a necessary first
step in understanding the barriers to technology adoption in teaching.
The study also determined the degree of correlation among the
TPACK and its components.

METHODOLOGY

The study is a descriptive quantitative research on the

TPACK of the mathematics educators of the University of Baguio
using a modified survey questionnaire based on Sahin’s (2011) work.
Respondents of the study comprised of all in-service Mathematics
educators of UB specifically those who are teaching lower and higher
mathematics subjects, general mathematics subjects, and specific
mathematics subjects unique to some programs as identified by their
respective deans and school heads.

I gave the survey questionnaires to the targeted participants

and collected after some time. I contacted the participants afterward

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through personal and telephone interviews to clarify some of their

answers to the questions. I successfully surveyed 36 (67.92%) out of
the 53 identified respondents. I used weighted means and Pearson’s
correlation coefficient to treat the data.

Ethical consideration

I surveyed the respondents who volunteered to participate.

I obtained permission from the authorities in the Research and
Development Center and the Office of the Vice President for
Academic Affairs to administer the survey-questionnaire. I
safeguarded the confidentiality of the data through non-disclosure
of the specific identity of the participants and strict handling of the
data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Mathematics Educators Extent of Knowledge

in TPACK and Its Components

Results revealed that the respondents have quite complete

knowledge (QK) in their extent of knowledge in technology (TK),
pedagogy (PK) and content (CK). However, the respondents got the
lowest score in CK and is reflected in their low scores in the following
indicators: 6. Following conferences and activities in my content area
(x̄ = 3.67, s = 1.014), 4. Recognizing leaders in my content area (x̄
= 3.89, s = 1.063) and 5. Following up-to-date resources (ex., books,
journals) in my content area (x̄ = 3.94, s = 0.924). These results
point to the lack of or inadequate content sources for their teaching.
These may be caused by the respondents’ disinterest or lack of time
in attending conferences and pursuing new developments in their
disciplines due to their busy schedules and workload. Further, the
inadequate number of appropriate reading materials in the university
may have also contributed to the dilemma.

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Table 1
Respondents’ extent of knowledge in technology, pedagogy, and
content knowledge
Knowledge Average Extent of Standard Descriptive
Components Knowledge Deviation Interpretation*
Technology 4.10 0.738 QK
Knowledge (TK)
Content 4.04 0.829 QK
Knowledge (CK)
Pedagogy 4.13 0.819 QK
Knowledge (PK)
*NK (no knowledge), LK (little knowledge), MK (moderate knowledge),
QK (quite complete knowledge), CK (complete knowledge)

On the respondents’ extent of knowledge in technology,

results revealed that the respondents have low scores in solving
a technical problem with the computer (x̄ = 3.33, s = 1.146),
following recent computer technologies (x̄ = 3.69, s = 0.951) and
using a picture editing program (ex., Paint) (x̄ = 3.69, s = 1.1215).
This might stem from the fact that while the respondents are adept
in solving mathematics and technical problems “on the board”
or in paper, doing so using a computer or handheld devices other
than the scientific calculator are not integrated in their mainstream
pedagogy. Further, the skill and confidence in using these handheld
and computing devices can only be acquired through its repetitive
usage, hence, the necessity of its integration into the respondent’s
pedagogy. This might also point to the defect of the training of the
teachers in using computers. Though they might excel in the use of
some word processing applications and the internet, they might be
lacking in the more fundamental use of the computer.

While the respondents’ knowledge in pedagogy in managing

class (x̄ = 4.36, s = 0.931) and assessing student performance (x̄ =
4.36, s = 0.931) reflects the good caliber of Mathematics educators
of the university, results for applying different learning theories
and approaches (ex., Constructivist Learning, Multiple Intelligence

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Theory, Project-based Teaching) (x̄ = 3.89, s = 0.887) questions the

respondents’ flexibility in their pedagogy and their adaptive capacity
to new trends especially in educational technology integration
into classroom teaching. Hence, the mathematics educators of the
university may be labeled as being “traditional” or teacher-centered
in their approaches to teaching as most are tied to the typical pen-
and-paper assessment and lecture methods. According to Putnam,
Lampert & Peterson (1990), students [in mathematics] should be
encouraged to write and talk about their ideas, to understand the
underlying concepts and be able to put them into words.  They should
spend their time abstracting, applying, convincing, classifying,
inferring, organizing, representing, inventing, generalizing,
specializing, comparing, explaining, patterning, validating, proving,
conjecturing, analyzing, counting, measuring, synthesizing, and
ordering because these are the sorts of activities that are thought
to characterize the work of mathematicians. Being “traditional”
in classroom teaching might, later on, be a hindrance to the full
implementation of the outcome based education (OBE) which is
constructivist (student-centered).

Table 2
Respondents’ extent of knowledge in technological-pedagogical
knowledge (TPK), technological-content knowledge (TCK) and
pedagogical-content knowledge (PCK)
Knowledge Components Average Extent Standard Descriptive
of Knowledge Deviation Interpretation*
Technological-Pedagogical 4.08 0.920 QK
Knowledge (TPK)
Technological-Content 4.01 0.889 QK
Knowledge (TCK)
Pedagogical-Content Knowledge 4.18 0.748 QK
(PCK)
Technology, Pedagogical and 3.99 0.869 QK
Content Knowledge(TPACK)

*NK (no knowledge), LK (little knowledge), MK (moderate knowledge),

QK (quite complete knowledge), CK (complete knowledge)

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The respondents’ extent of knowledge in integrating their

pedagogy, technology knowledge and content areas (TPK, TCK,
PCK) indicates that the respondents have more than adequate
knowledge in integrating the three knowledge components. However,
a scrutiny of the individual indicators for the three integrated
knowledge components revealed that using area-specific computer
applications (x̄ = 3.83 s = 0.971) and supporting subjects in my
content area with outside (out-of-school) activities (x̄ = 4.00, s =
0.926) both need room for improvement as they garnered the lowest
scores. Area-specific computer applications may not be adapted by
mathematics educators due to its non-integration in the curriculum,
non-availability of the application due to high costs of acquisition
and maintenance, or inadequacy of the respondents’ knowledge
regarding such application (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison 2004).
Outside school activities such as excursions, field trips, company
visits, workplace integration, and OJT’s, though encouraged by the
University, are limited. Hence, the results. The results may also
be due to the limited opportunities for such endeavors or that the
bureaucratic procedures may be time-consuming for the respondents
to follow.

The respondents’ average extent of knowledge on their

TPACK of 3.99 interpreted as “quite-complete knowledge” (QK)
indicates that the Mathematics educators are adequate in their
knowledge in integrating the three knowledge components. This
result is supported by the previous findings. However, taking a
leadership role among my colleagues in the integration of content,
pedagogy and technology knowledge (x̄ = 3.89, s = 0.887) and
teaching a subject with different instructional strategies and
computer applications (x̄ = 3.97, s = 1.000), both point out to the
lack of confidence among the respondents in integrating technology
into their teaching. This may be due to the non-exposure of the
respondents to current trends in technology adapted into their content
areas. The non-availability and opportunity for adoption of such

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technologies may also be a contributory factor.

Degree of Correlation Between TPACK and its Components

Results of the bivariate correlation analysis using Pearson’s r

showed strong positive correlation (r >0.5) among the respondents’
TPACK and its components. Also, tests of significance indicated that
all bivariate correlations are significant at the 0.01 level. These results
are parallel with Sahin’s findings in 2011 for pre-service teachers
as well as Schmidt, Baran, Mishra, Koehler, and Shin’s findings in
2009. The findings of the study suggest that the respondent’s extent
of knowledge on technology, pedagogy, and content are all strongly
correlated with each other and that improving one’s mathematics’
teaching prowess with technology will have to include developing
one’s strength in all the three knowledge bases.

Table 3
Correlation between the respondent’s TK, PK, CK, TPK, TCK,
PCK, and TPACK
Knowledge TK CK PK TPK TCK PCK
Component
TK
CK 0.571*
PK 0.532* 0.882*
TPK 0.725* 0.858* 0.812*
TCK 0.733* 0.800* 0.747* 0.927*
PCK 0.595* 0.827* 0.875* 0.859* 0.770*
TPACK 0.656* 0.849* 0.784* 0.894* 0.885* 0.864*

*Correlation significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

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CONCLUSIONS

Results indicated that the respondents have “quite complete

knowledge” (QK) in technology, content, and pedagogy (TK, CK, and
PK). Moreover, the respondents’ extent of knowledge in integrating
their pedagogy, technology knowledge and content knowledge
(TPK, TCK, PCK, TPACK) shows that the respondents have more
than adequate knowledge in integrating the three knowledge bases.
However, subsequent analysis revealed that the respondents’ extent
of knowledge on their content area seems to be wanting and was
corroborated in the individual analysis of the item indicators. Also,
respondents have low scores in following recent developments in
the respondents’ content areas, solving a technical problem with the
computer, and following recent computer technologies, which might
be due to one’s disinterest in the field. But field-specific or content
area specific recent computer technologies were not differentiated
in this case implying that there is room for more investigation. The
low score of the respondents in “applying different learning theories
and approaches” (in PK) imply that many of the respondents are
“traditional” (teacher-centered) in their approaches to teaching
Mathematics partly because of the non-availability of educational
technologies designed specifically for Mathematics. Other results
of the TPK, TCK, PCK, and TPACK all points to the lack or low
knowledge of the respondents in recent educational technologies
in their content areas due to the non-availability, non-exposure or
non-adoption of these technologies. Bivariate correlation analysis
of the respondents’ TPACK constructs revealed significant positive
correlation at the 0.01 level among the different knowledge
constructs, implying a holistic approach to mathematics teachers’
training.

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