Research Instrument

The research instrument used in the quantitative research phase was an online survey of early adopters of geospatial technologies in geography teaching and

consisted of 16 demographic multiple-choice questions, two Likert-scales of 28 items and seven items respectively, and four open-ended written response questions. The survey was adapted from a previously published research instrument, The Survey of In-Service Teachers’ Knowledge of Teaching and Technology (Doering, Koseoglu, Scharber, Henrickson & Langeran, 2014). Doering et al.’s instrument, which consists of 28 items on a five-point Likert-scale, was used in the authors’ study to examine 44 American middle school and high school teachers’ knowledge for teaching geography with technologies. Used by the authors to evaluate the success of a professional learning workshop, the instrument was further adapted for this study to specifically measure Australian geography teachers’ knowledge for teaching with geospatial technologies. The adapted instrument was given the name of the Geospatial

Technologies for Geography Education Survey (GST4GEOG) to reflect the research focus on GST in geography education.

The design of the survey requires teachers to “self-report” their TPACK knowledge and confidence for teaching with GST. There are limitations associated

with survey designs that rely on self-reported data. Most critical for this study, the “social desirability bias” or a tendency for participants to provide answers they deem more “socially acceptable” (Lavrakas, 2008), could have resulted in teachers’ over- reporting their knowledge and confidence for teaching with GST in an attempt to appear more successful in their practice. In health research settings, Short et al. (2009) found differences between the self-report accuracy of men and women, while Sallis and Saelens (2000) argued that differences may be found in the way that individuals from different demographic, ethnic and cultural groups respond to self-report

questionnaires and surveys. Despite these potential limitations, the self-report survey remains a consistently utilised research method for TPACK research studies (see, for example, Abbitt, 2011; Agyei & Voogt, 2011; Albion, Jamieson-Proctor & Finger, 2010; Koehler & Mishra, 2012). A self-report survey was, therefore, considered a justifiable method for collecting quantitative data for this study.

Doering et al.’s (2014) survey itself was derived from a previously published instrument; Schmidt et al.’s (2009) survey of the TPACK of 124 pre-service teachers. The survey developed by Schmidt and her colleagues is a widely accepted instrument, specifically designed by the authors to address the need for a reliable and well-

validated means of measuring TPACK (Archambault & Barnett, 2010; Graham, 2011; Koehler, Shin & Mishra, 2012). This instrument was subject to a range of statistical and qualitative tests of the proposed items, including expert evaluation of content validity and factor analysis to determine internal consistency. In Doering et al.’s (2014) articulation of the instrument, 28 items were retained from Schmidt et al.’s work. Reliability analysis revealed high levels of item reliability with scores ranging from 0.82 to 0.92 during their pre-test and 0.76 to 0.94 for the post-test. As a review of existing TPACK literature revealed very few validated and reliable research

instruments (Abbitt, 2011), the decision was made to adopt the Doering et al. ’s instrument due to the high level of internal consistency reliability. Modifications were further made to the survey to reflect the focus on geospatial technologies (as opposed to generic ICT as measured in Doering et al.’s study). These modifications are

reflected in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1

Modifications to Doering et al. (2014) in the Design of the GST4GEOG Survey Doering et al. (2014) item Modified item in GST4GEOG

18. I know about technologies I can use for understanding and doing geography

18. I know about geospatial technologies I can use for understanding and doing geography

19. I can choose technologies that enhance the teaching approaches for a lesson

19. I can choose geospatial technologies that enhance the teaching approaches for a lesson

20. I can choose technologies that

enhance students’ learning for a lesson 20. I can choose geospatial technologies that enhance students’ learning for a lesson

21. I think deeply about how technology could influence the teaching approaches I use in my classroom

21. I think deeply about how geospatial technology could influence the teaching approaches I use in my classroom 22. I am thinking critically about how to

use technology in my classroom

22. I am thinking critically about how to use geospatial technology in my

classroom 23. I can adapt the use of technologies to

different teaching activities

23. I can adapt the use of geospatial technologies to different teaching activities

24. I can select technologies to use in my classroom that enhance what I teach, how I teach and what students learn

24. I can select geospatial technologies to use in my classroom that enhance what I teach, how I teach and what students learn 25. I can use strategies that combine

content, technologies, and teaching approaches in my classroom

25. I can use strategies that combine content, geospatial technologies and teaching approaches in my classroom 26. I can provide leadership in helping

others to coordinate the use of content, technologies and teaching approaches at my school and/or district

26. I can provide leadership in helping others to coordinate the use of content, geospatial technologies and teaching approaches at my school

27. I can choose technologies that enhance the content for a lesson

27. I can choose geospatial technologies that enhance the content for a lesson

28. I can teach lessons that appropriately combine geography, technologies and teaching approaches

28. I can teach lessons that appropriately combine geography, geospatial

technologies and teaching approaches.

An additional seven Likert-scale items were constructed to collect data about teachers’ confidence in using a range of geospatial technologies commonly used in education. These include: aerial photography, Google Earth, Google Maps, GIS, GPS, satellite photography and Spatial Genie. Participants were asked to describe their confidence on a five-point Likert-scale where 0 = not confident at all and 5 = very confident.

A further four open-ended written response questions were included in the GST4GEOG survey. Specifically, participants were asked to describe how they have used GST in their private lives (e.g. I can track my run using Strava) and how they have used them in the classroom for geography teaching (e.g. I used Google Earth to show the location of Africa). Participants were also asked to comment on their perceptions of the factors that influence their decisions to use GST in geography teaching and the nature of any training they have undertaken in relation to their use. The full text of the survey can be found in Appendix B.