Margaret Niess (2011) asserts that one area of research is the development of a TPACK
type instrument that could provide an initial assessment of pre-service teachers’ TPACK
awareness. An example of this kind of instrument is the kind used by Mark Hart and Swapna
Kumar (2014) in their research on the early identification of pre-service teachers’ TPACK. They
developed a pre-course survey instrument that pre-service teachers can use to begin selfassessing
their TPACK knowledge. Such a survey provides a way to launch into explicit
instruction of what the TPACK model entails and how it could prove to be useful to a pre-service
teacher when designing and implementing lessons using educational technology, especially in
social studies. Teacher education courses should include explicit instruction about the TPACK
model and give pre-service teachers opportunities to design and reflect on lessons that include
the intersection of technology, pedagogy, and content. This process is especially important in
social studies, so the field can move from a mere reliance on edutainment type software to more
authentic uses of technology that mesh with the content and pedagogy.