Empirical Studies

A growing number of researchers have shown interest in the influence of contexts on teachers’ TPACK enactment in recent years (see Appendix 4). Koh, Chai, and Tay (2014) as well as Owusu, Conner, and Astall (2015) adopted Chai et al. (2013) version of context classification. Koh et al. (2014) scrutinized what contextual factors influenced teachers’ pedagogical decisions in their lesson plans. Three groups of elementary school teachers in Singapore were investigated. The discussions of Primary 1 teachers focused on logistics of implementing lesson activities (cultural/institutional contextual factors). Fewer ICT pedagogical issues were discussed due to concerns about students’ ICT literacies. A teacher, for example, changed a computer-based tangram activity into hardcopy since students couldn’t undo the tangram pulled in a wrong way. The discussions of Primary 4 teachers were content/pedagogical focused.

They shared beliefs about using technologies and collaboration with colleagues (intrapersonal and interpersonal contextual factors). Primary 5 teachers discussed issues mainly related to TPACK. For instance, they may deeply rationalize ICT strategies or

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discuss CK owing to preparation for exams. Overall, fifty-five percent of all the teachers’ discussions centered on logistical issues (cultural/institutional contextual factors) such as the scheduling and organizing of class tests and field trips. This result suggested that the need to meet institutional demands was a key contextual factor reducing the emergence of TPACK. In contrast, although teachers’ beliefs and experienced peer facilitator exerted positive influence on their practice of ICT integration, they seldom naturally expressed beliefs in design discussions unless being elicited intentionally.

Owusu et al. (2015) investigated how the contextual factors of class level affected teachers’ TPACK. The multiple-case study was conducted on five science teachers in two junior and senior high schools in New Zealand. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and direct observations. The results showed that both assessment-driven and concerns about students’ needs influenced the teachers’ use of technologies.

Teachers demonstrated different levels of TPACK (Niess, van Zee, & Gillow-Wiles, 2010) in different classes. Three teachers, for example, were at “exploring” TPACK level in year 10 classes. They consciously and actively made students search information and present outcomes at their own choice. Moreover, this study also showed that contextual factors such as teachers’ expectations of themselves (intrapersonal) and the expectations of students (interpersonal) influenced teachers’

TPACK enactment.

Blackwell, Lauricella, and Wartella (2016), Swallow and Olofson (2017), and Tseng, Cheng, and Yeh (2019) adopted Porras-Hernández and Salinas-Amescua (2013) version of context classification. Blackwell et al. (2016) surveyed 411 preschool educators teaching children aged 3 to 5 in the America. They used survey data to see how contextual factors such as teacher attitudes, student background, and school support influenced teachers’ TPACK enactment. They also delved into what apps and

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app types were utilized by these early childhood educators. The results showed that school support was associated with teachers’ student-centered practices of creation activities, paired learning, and free choice. Contextual factors of teacher-level were consistently related to how teachers integrated tablet PCs into their classrooms than the other factors of student- and school-level. In particular, teachers’ positive attitudes toward technology were most influential in determining the frequency and usage of their tablet practices.

Swallow and Olofson (2017) conducted a multiple-case study under a Catholic educational setting to explore the contextual factors contributing to teachers’ TPACK development and enactment. The participants were seven middle-level educators in two private Catholic schools. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, and field evidence (see Table2-1). The macro level merely served an indirect function upon TPACK development through the meso and micro levels. In meso level, when access to technology resources were increased, only those who experienced a recent increase demonstrated a more dynamic TPACK practices.

However, teachers’ use of technology was profoundly affected by teacher-centric factors in the micro context. It was the prerequisite of teachers’ individual differences in terms of backgrounds, attitudes, and personal conceptualizations of contemporary education that resulted in their varied TPACK enactments.

Tseng et al. (2019) examined teachers’ TPACK enactment through design thinking, with regard to contextual problems inflicting on their web-conferencing practices. Six pre-service English teachers aged 21 and 22 in Taiwan were recruited. Data were collected through mixed-method of quantitative post-teaching discussions and qualitative focus-group interviews. In analyzing the discourse episodes, topics of PCK were the most articulated as the student teachers discussed how to teach vocabulary and sentence patterns. On the contrary, TPK issues were the least mentioned (0 counts). The

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researcher addressed since not every technology was designed for educational purposes, it required teachers’ nuanced understanding of the affordance and constraints of technology to help them accommodate in different contexts. As for the contextual factors influencing their online instruction, two types of contextual factors were identified. One is the technical problems related to sound quality of micro level. The other is teachers’ concerns about students’ prior knowledge and short attention span, which can be viewed as student-centric.

The above studies provided prospects and comprehensive insights into how TPACK enactment was mediated by the context in real practice. Various contextual factors, in addition to the previous pronounced micro level, were gradually gaining notice and coming into play. Teacher level or intrapersonal context (e.g., teachers’ belief and attitude), for example, had a positive correlation with teachers’ enhanced use of technology integration (Blackwell et al., 2016; Swallow & Olofson, 2017). The identification of these contextual factors can help further our understanding of how teachers’ TPACK is woven together with the context. However, the context of remote schools in the present study seemed to be a missing piece in this puzzle. The inclusion of context into TPACK enactment is worth exploring as remote school is a distinctive context “characterized by inequality, culture, power, and affective factors” (Porras-Hernández & Salinas-Amescua, 2013).

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Table 2-1

Contextual Clues in Data Collection (Swallow & Olofson, 2017)

Macro Meso Micro

Interview support of technology integration, community Field Evidence available technologies,

school policies,

When the previous literature was reviewed, most of the MALL studies focused on the effects of mobile technology on language learners’ perceptions and linguistic improvements (Burston, 2014b; Duman et al., 2015). Even though there was a growing number of studies exploring MALL from the perspectives of educators, the studies combining TPACK with teachers’ meaningful use of mobile technology has developed only in recent years. The practitioners’ TPACK was often assessed by their self-report survey or the intervention of a professional development program (Chai et al., 2013;

Voogt et al., 2013). The courses usually provided a wide range of technologies but seldom referred exclusively to tablet PCs. Little has been known about how EFL