6. Conclusions and recommendations
Teacher educators acknowledge the need to develop valid and reliable instruments to assess
teachers’ TPACK. As mentioned in the introduction part, several instruments have been designed
for this purpose. With the new concepts like 21st century skills (The Partnership for 21st Century
Skills-P21, 2013), Information, Media and Technology Skills have gained a lot of importance when
educating the children. Therefore, teachers should also be enriched with the similar skills together
with the skills that combine technology, pedagogy, and their content areas. It is now inevitable to
include TPACK framework into both pre-service and in-service teacher training and preparation
programs. The need to design, evaluate, and refine ICT integration courses for pre-service teachers
grounded on sound theoretical framework is still widely recognized among teacher educators (Chai
et al., 2011, Mishra et al., 2009). Pierson (2011) found that teachers with both extensive teaching and
technological expertise were the most effective technology integrators. This suggests that teachers
need to develop a certain level of PCK and TK prior to forming their TPACK. Therefore, it is
necessary to be able to measure on-job teachers’ TPACK competencies and perceptions to be able
to design professional development programs that would support the needs of the teachers. The
survey instrument which was developed by Koh, Chai & Tsait (2010) and was adapted in this study
serves this purpose.