شبكة المعلومات العربية التربوية

The continuous advancement of technologies and their increasing integration into the education process places a great demand on teachers to be able to use such technologies effectively in their teaching and learning processes. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), efforts to advance the education system, as articulated in the Vision 2020 strategic plan, have pushed teacher training programs to better prepare teachers for the use of technology in the classroom. As a result, a number of one-year post-baccalaureate pre-service teacher preparation programs in the KSA have begun to incorporate more technology training in their programs. However, the degree to which these programs prepare pre-service teachers for the use of technology in their own teaching process remains largely unknown. To address this gap, the purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which teacher education programs in the colleges of education at three Saudi universities—Taif University (TU), King Khalid University (KKU), and King Faisal University (KFU)—prepare preservice teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms. Koehler and Mishra’s (2006) technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework was followed, and a TPACK instrument adapted from Schmidt et al. (2009) was used to measure 529 pre-service teachers (135 males, 394 females) through self-reported TPACK scores at the beginning and at the end of their teacher preparation program. The results showed a significant increase in the perceived knowledge level of pre-service teachers’ TPACK model by the end of the training program in their Saudi university. The findings also showed that pre-service teachers’ TK, CK, PK, PCK, TCK, TPK, and TPACK can be affected by gender in favor of males, even though most of the participants in the survey were female (74.5%). Finally, the findings reported that the higher the computer usage skills of participants in the teacher training program, the less knowledge they will likely gain from such programs, particularly in their TK and TPACK. These findings can help the KSA inform future improvements and developments in the teacher training programs that address technology skills in the classroom in the KSA. (Published abstract)