Technological pedagogical content ethical knowledge (TPCEK): The development of an assessment instrument for pre-service teachers

Although a variety of studies have explored the framework of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), these studies did not incorporate (1) what ethical issues have arisen from the application of digital technologies in teaching, and (2) what kind of knowledge teachers need to face these issues. These questions remain largely unanswered in existing research. This study proposes a newly developed conceptual framework called Technological Pedagogical Content Ethical Knowledge (TPCEK) that introduces ethical knowledge as a new component based on the TPACK framework. A quantitative study was conducted to develop and validate an assessment instrument for Chinese pre-service teachers based on the TPCEK framework. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the validity and reliability of the measures. Our results indicated that the final version of the TPCEK scale is a reliable and valid one for measuring pre-service teachers’ TPCEK. These insights allow us to understand the importance of ethical knowledge for teaching with digital technologies and the relationships between ethical knowledge and knowledge components of the TPACK framework.