The Role of a Virtual Internship in Developing Preservice Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Abstract

Virtual internships are new areas of research in teacher education. This study examined the effectiveness of a virtual internship to develop preservice teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) employing a quasi-experimental research design aided by qualitative data. The participants were seventy-four preservice teachers from a variety of majors. Data were collected using a self-report survey adapted from the Survey of Preservice Teachers' Knowledge of Teaching and Technology and the reflections written by the participants. The results indicated no statistically significant differences in the TPACK survey scores between the experimental and the control group participants. However, the experimental group significantly increased their TPACK scores in all TPACK sub-domains, except the content knowledge. The qualitative analysis based on participants’ reflections supported the findings from the quantitative analysis by providing confirming evidence for the effectiveness of virtual internships in preservice teacher education.