HOW DOES THE USE OF VIRTUAL LABS IN IN-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHER TRAINING ENHANCE THEIR TECHNOLOGICAL, PEDAGOGICAL AND CONTENT KNOWLEDGE (TPACK) ON THE TOPIC "CHEMICAL REACTIONS"?

This research aimed at exploring how the introduction and use of virtual labs in in-service science teachers’ training enhance their technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) on the topic "Chemical Reactions" for 9th grade students. Twelve chemistry teachers attended the training on using virtual labs on the topic “Chemical Reactions”. In order to achieve the research objective, qualitative methodology was adopted including a questionnaire that was applied pre- and post the training, semi-structured interviews and observation of teachers’ classes after the training. After applying content analysis, results showed development in teachers’ content knowledge of the topic “chemical reactions”. Teachers acquired not only a deeper understanding of concepts and scientific ideas of the topic but also how to represent them to students. However, the development of pedagogical knowledge varied from one teacher to another due to their different conceptions and beliefs about learning. Despite that, all teachers adopted virtual experimentation as part of their teaching practices. Teachers’ technological content knowledge was also enhanced since they felt more confident in using more free online available resources like short videos and applications like crocodile and PHET. In addition, they helped their students to use those online applications to design and conduct virtual experiments to improve their own learning. The research results strongly recommends the positive impact and necessity of integrating content-, pedagogical-, and technological knowledge (TPACK) within in-service chemistry teachers’ training programs.