UNPACKING THE TPACK FRAMEWORK IN EFL CONTEXT: A
REVIEW OF EMPIRICAL STUDIES FROM 2015 TO 2019
Shelia Anjarani
Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto, Purwokerto, Indonesia
shelia.anjarani@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) has been
implemented as a conceptual framework for the knowledge domains
that teachers need to master to successfully teach using technology
and it has attracted a lot of attention across the field of education.
Nonetheless, the framework has been criticized for not being
practically useful. TPACK studies were mostly conducted in
Mathematics and Science. Meanwhile, research on integrating
English as a foreign language (EFL) into TPACK has been lagging
behind. To better understand the critics, an investigation of general
characteristics of TPACK studies in EFL context is needed. This paper is
a systematic literature review of 20 peer-reviewed journal articles
concerning the use of TPACK in EFL context published from 2015 to
2019.
Keywords: EFL, teachers, TPACK

1. INTRODUCTION
Mastering pedagogy and content
knowledge were enough for teachers in
the past, but in this digital era, teachers
must not only master pedagogy and
content
knowledge,
but
also
technology competence. The use of
technology in English language teaching
is snowballing. It is driven by a belief
that technology can improve the
learning outcomes (Selwyn, 2012).
Moreover, technology has a positive
effect on students’ learning when it is
properly integrated (Schrum et al.,
2007). In the other hand, Lei (2009)
stated that being able to master the
technology does not mean that being
able to implement technology critically,

wisely, and meaningfully in the
classroom. According to Mishra and
Koehler (2006), teachers only explore
about technology and not how to
implement it into teaching and learning
process. Thus, the use of technology in
education requires the knowledge and
understanding of English teachers.
Meanwhile, there are some stumbling
blocks about the use and integration of
technology in education. Research
mentioned that college teachers are
well equipped with the content
knowledge in their subject areas, but
they often lack pedagogical skills in
integrating technology (Clarke and
Hollingsworth, 2002; Jang and Chen,

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2010). Thus, there is an evident need
for the teachers to understand
technology, pedagogy, and content
knowledge
in
English
language
teaching. Technology can no longer be
separated from pedagogical and
content knowledge that teachers need
to acquire. To address this issue,
Mishra and Koehler (2006) suggested a
structure for technological pedagogical
content knowledge (TPACK) that
includes theoretical frameworks that
can be used to help teachers carry out
self-assessments and to understand the
growth of their professional knowledge
through technology-based teaching
practices.
Around fifty years ago, Shulman
(1986) conducted a research program
“Knowledge Growth for Teaching”
which was about the disparity of
teachers. TPACK is the development of
Shulman’s concept about Pedagogical
Content Knowledge (PCK) model
(Shulman,
1986).
Then,
the
technological aspect was added by
Koehler and Mishra (2005) which refers
to the knowledge about how to use and
integrate technological resources.
There are three categories of
knowledge each teacher should flourish
to grow in the minds: (a) subject matter
content knowledge, (b) pedagogical
content knowledge, (c) curricular
knowledge (Shulman, 1986). Subject
matter content knowledge refers to the
knowledge of the ideas. Pedagogical
content knowledge involves the
content of teaching and the ways it is
presented.
Curricular
knowledge
relates to the curriculum designed for a
subject and pedagogy matter. Those
three notions of knowledge categories
have been permeated in teacher

education since 1987 (Shulman, 1986;
Mishra & Koehler, 2006).
TPACK is introduced as a framework
for the understanding of teacher skills
needed for technology integration
(Mishra & Koehler, 2006). There are
seven sub-domains in TPACK (Mishra &
Koehler, 2006):
1) Content knowledge (CK) refers to
knowledge about subject matter
2) Technology knowledge (TK) refers to
knowledge
about
various
technologies
3) Pedagogical knowledge (PK) refers
to knowledge about methods of
teaching
4) Technological content knowledge
(TCK) refers to knowledge about
subject matter presented by using
technology
5) Technological
pedagogical
knowledge
(TPK)
refers
to
knowledge about the use of
technology to implement different
teaching methods
6) Pedagogical content knowledge
(PCK) refers to knowledge of
teaching methods for different types
of subject matter
7) Technological pedagogical content
knowledge (TPACK), which is
understood as knowledge of the use
of technology to implement teaching
methods for different types of
subject matter

Figure 1. The TPACK Framework (Mishra &
Koehler, 2006)

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TPACK relates to the knowledge
base that teachers need to integrate
technology. One aspect of knowledge
base needs teachers to identify and
actualize the affordances of a specific
technology (Koehler & Mishra, 2008).
Affordances refer to how technology is
meaningful and beneficial to its users.
Teachers need to gain a deep
understanding
of
technological
affordances in an educational context
in order to help students learn with
technology critically. How the TPACK
framework contributes to teacher
research on technology integration is to
highlight teachers’ capacity to juggle
technological, pedagogical, and content
knowledge. Teachers should focus
more on what to teach with particular
technology tools rather than how to
teach with the tools (Hofer & Harris,
2012). Here we see that TPACK is
considered ideal for English teachers to
acquire. TPACK gives insight framework
in teaching and learning process.
Meanwhile, there is not clear
understanding how to integrate TPACK
in teaching and learning process. In the
other hand, TPACK has attracted much
attention in research as evidenced by
more than 600 journal articles using
TPACK framework in many fields of
education (Koehler, Mishra, Kereluik,
Shin, & Graham, 2014). Mishra &
Koehler (2006) state that the great
impact of TPACK may be because it
constitutes a theoretical framework
that focuses on how technology is
integrated into teaching by suggesting a
holistic view of the entire knowledge
base teachers need to master to
effectively
apply
technology
in
teaching. They explained that it is
about
teachers
incorporating

technological knowledge into the
structure of pedagogical content
knowledge and the surrounding
context. In the previous study, Chai et
al. (2013) involved 74 articles exploring
the site of the studies, publication
outlet, method, and teachers’ and
researcher’s design in their program
using TPACK framework. Another study
was conducted by Voogt et al. (2013).
Their
review
investigated
the
theoretical basis and practical use of
TPACK. Those previous studies were
systematic review about TPACK in
various subjects. Though it draws the
attention from the increasing number
of studies related to TPACK, there is not
yet a systematic review about TPACK in
EFL context. Thus, systematic review of
TPACK in EFL context is called for.
Moreover, there is a need to identify
how TPACK is identified in English
teaching and learning process. The
purpose of this paper is to review some
studies about TPACK in EFL context
from 2015 to 2019 and how TPACK
framework is identified in English
language teaching context. Therefore, I
posed these following questions: (1)
What are the general characteristics of
TPACK paper in EFL context? and (2)
How is the teacher TPACK identified in
EFL context?.

2. General Characteristics
In order to categorize and analyze
general characteristics of TPACK articles
in EFL context, a protocol was
developed. There are some points
included in the protocol, such as
author(s) and year of paper publication,
the journals, research methodologies
(quantitative
method,
qualitative
method, and mixed method), and the

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study objects (pre-service teachers or
in-service teachers). The reviewed

articles are presented in the table
below.

An overview of the reviewed articles is presented in Table 1.
Author(s)

Journals

Qualitative
Method

Baser et al. (2015)

Computer Assisted
Language Learning

Mahdum (2015)

Mediterranean
Journal of Social
Sciences

Oz (2015)

International
Education Studies

x

Tseng (2015)

International
Journal on Digital
Learning Technology

x

Wu & Wang (2015)

The
Asia-Pacific
Education
Researcher

Ansyari (2015)

Australasian Journal
of
Educational
Technology

x

x

Liu & Kleinsasser
(2015)

Language Learning
and Technology

x

x

Tai (2015)

Language Learning
and Technology

x

x

Cahyono et.al
(2016)

International
Journal of English
Language Teaching

x

x

Chien (2016)

International
Journal
of
TechnologyEnhanced Language
Learning

Hsu (2017)

Computer Assisted
Language Learning

Tseng (2017)

Computer Assisted
Language Learning

x

Turgut (2017)

Cogent Education

x

Bostancıglu &
Handley (2018)
Drajati, et al
(2018)

Computer Assisted
Language Learning
Indonesian Journal
of
Applied
Linguistics (IJAL)

x
x

x

Tseng, et al
(2019)

Computers &
Education Journal

x

x

Mei, et al. (2018)

Journal
Educational

of

Quantitative
Method

Mixed
Method
x

Pre-service
teachers
x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

In-service
teachers

x

x

x
x

x

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Computing
Research
Chuang,
(2018)

et

al.

The Asia
Education
Researcher

Pacific

x

Habibi et al. (2019)

Education
Information
Technologies

and

x

Nazari et al. (2019)

Cogent Education

There were 20 papers of TPACK in
EFL context reviewed from 2015 to
2019. There was a high publication of
TPACK in EFL context in 2015. In the
journal of Computer Assisted Language
Learning, the highest number of TPACK
articles in EFL context was found. The
findings reported by Chai et al. (2013)
confirm that the highest number of
TPACK publications is found in the
journal of education technology. Mixed
method was the most widely used
approach followed by quantitative
method that harmonizes Wu's findings
(2013). Meanwhile, current empirical
studies on TPACK in EFL still suffer from
the limitation of research design. It is
proven that the number of qualitative
studies on TPACK is very limited. From
the research papers reviewed about
TPACK in EFL context, in-service
teachers were more studied than preservice teachers in EFL context which
differs from the findings of Wu (2013).
The implementation of TPACK in EFL
context was discussed the most,
followed by assessment tool design for
TPACK and the effects of TPACK
framework in EFL context. However,
the sample size for these empirical
studies is relatively small and typically
has about hundreds of participants.
There should be more large-scale of
empirical studies. Furthermore, it is still

x

x

x

x

x

unclear
about
the
knowledge
underpinning teachers’ technology
integration practices. So, more
empirical studies should be conducted
to fill the gap of the previous studies.
According to the paper reviewed, selfreporting was mostly used approach to
identify EFL teacher TPACK. It is proven
that to examine TPACK, most of the
researchers employed self-assessment
with survey. According to Willermark
(2017), one of the ways to identify
teacher TPACK is through selfreporting.

3. Self-Reporting
Self-reporting was used to identify
the teacher TPACK. Self-reporting was
divided into three categories, namely
general TPACK, specific TPACK, and
experienced TPACK. General TPACK
refers to circumstances in which
teachers measure the TPACK they
experience. For example, by rating
statements reflecting various TPACK
constructs, such as “I am good with
technology”. Specific TPACK requires
situating TPACK within a specific
context. It refers to circumstances
where TPACK is defined by the selfreporting of teachers about how they
should act in particular scenarios.
Experienced TPACK refers to cases in
which teachers report on the actual

85 | P a g e

experiences of the implementation of
teaching activities. The self-report on
general TPACK knowledge represented
an approach in which TPACK is studied
exclusively as knowledge since it
involves estimating knowledge as
something stable that the person
possesses despite the situation.
Studying
the
particular
TPACK
represents a slight step towards
considering TPACK as a competence as
it requires situating the knowledge.

4. General TPACK Knowledge
The most commonly used approach to
evaluating TPACK was self-assessment
by surveys. Numerous instruments
were built that applied various ways of
operationalizing
the
TPACK
construction. A survey developed by
Schmidt (2009) was the most widely
used survey and it was implemented in
7 articles. Participants were asked to
rate the numerical statements on a
Likert scale of 5 or 7 points where the 7
sub-scales of TPACK domains were
examined. In the Schmidt survey, the
participants had to answer 75 items of
the seven TPACK domains. The second
most used survey was “TPACK EFL
survey” and it was applied in 3 articles.
It was developed by Baser et al. (2016).
There are 9 points of Likert scale with
39 items in this questionnaire. There
are
other
survey
instruments
introduced by the researchers in EFL
context. There was a combination
work of TPACK survey from Koh et al.
(2010) and Sahin (2011). They
developed 7-point Likert scale with 42
statements about TPACK components.
Chuang and Huang (2012) developed a
24-item survey to address data on
participants’
self-perceived
CALL

competency. Habibi (2019) developed a
38-item
survey which
is the
combination of TPACK survey (Koh et
al., 2010; Luik et al., 2018; Schmidt et
al., 2009) and UICT (Aslan and Zhu,
2017). It was developed to explore if
TPACK is valid model to explain
Indonesian
pre-service
language
teachers in their teaching practices.

5. Specific TPACK Knowledge
Tai (2015) explored the impact of
CALL workshop for teachers by using
TPACK-in-Action model. The model is
part of TPACK designed by Mishra and
Koehler (2006) and an approach of
learning-by-doing
(Chapelle
&
Hegelheimer, 2004). It is used to
understand how English teachers
develop their CALL competency and
adopt it in their teaching practices. The
researcher employed 14 survey items
which were divided into 2 dimensions.
The dimension 1 is about Use of
Technology Tools and the Internet for
Teaching, while for the dimension II is
about Use Cloud Computing for Student
Interactions
and
Discussion.
Participants were asked to rate the
numerical statement on 5-point Likert
scale, with 1 as “Strongly Disagree” and
5 as “Strongly Agree”.

6. Experienced TPACK
Tseng (2015) explored how English
teacher in elementary school using
tablet to improve student engagement
by adopting the framework of TPACK.
Qualitative data were collected to
explore teacher’s TPACK, such as
Facebook reflection posts, observation
in the classroom, and interview. Then,
data of Facebook reflection posts were
triangulated with class observation and
transcription of the interview. Cahyono
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et al. (2016) employed TPACK-oriented
teaching practice course to improve the
quality of EFL instructional designs and
teaching practices. They designed a
course in which in-service teachers
were introduced to TPACK framework
and they were assigned to create
instructional designs using TPACK
framework. The teachers were asked to
teach their peers using the instructional
designs they have created. At the end,
they were given the questionnaire to
explore the benefits of instructional
design using TPACK framework to
improve the quality of their
instructional designs and teaching
practices. Another research conducted
by Tseng et al. (2015) explored how six
pre-service teachers implemented
various forms of TPACK through design
thinking over 14 weeks course. The
data about the implementation of
TPACK were collected through postteaching discussions. It was recorded
and transcribed verbatim.

7. CONCLUSION
The review reveals that researchers
has mostly focused on examining
teacher TPACK through self-reporting
using general knowledge. Research
trends show that mixed-method was
mostly used in TPACK research to
triangulate findings in EFL context.
Furthermore, the trends also show that
in-service teachers attracted more
attention to explore teacher TPACK in
EFL context. For the future research,
another way to identify teacher TPACK
is proposed and more instruments
developed to support the identification
of teacher TPACK competence in EFL
context is suggested.

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