Physical Education Pre-Service Teachers as Design Thinkers: Exploring the Role of Divergent and Convergent Thinking and TPACK

A growing number of studies indicate the Design thinking (DT) can effectively contribute to teachers’ knowledge, and developing pre-service teachers’ 21st century competencies requires that teachers consider how to apply technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) through the DT process. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the DT of Chinese physical education pre-service teachers (PEPTs) and its relationships with TPACK. Two questionnaires were used to collect data from 316 pre-service teachers. The validity of the questionnaires were determined through confirmatory factor analysis. The findings showed significant positive correlations between all DT factors and TPACK. The path analysis showed that divergent thinking can predict technological content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge. It is worth noting that convergent thinking was also found to predict technological content knowledge. These findings suggest DT plays a key role in enhancing PEPTs' TPACK, particularly through divergent thinking processes. This study highlights the importance of incorporating DT into physical education teacher education programs to foster PEPTs' ability to integrate technology effectively in the teaching practices.