Abstract
This article contributes to our understanding of teacher education by presenting the results of a large pilot study of quality assessments of teacher education programs at three Norwegian universities. We present an assessment instrument that corresponds to the California Standards for Teaching Professions and the practice domains developed by Darling-Hammond. The research question is: To what extent does the reported five-factor structure in the reported revised instrument (Darling-Hammond) fit the Norwegian context? We have revised this instrument to better cover both the documented dimensions of teacher professionalism and the demands regarding teacher quality in Norwegian educational policy. This has been accomplished by incorporating and modifying the items of the Darling-Hammond instrument. The modification process involved a selection of students, teachers, teacher educators and a school headmaster who discussed the relevance and content validity of the items. The final questionnaire was piloted at three Norwegian universities in three different education programs, with the participation of 419 students. The results show high inter-correlation between the original practice domains of Darling-Hammond, but the original factor structure is reproduced and to some extent supported. The results are discussed, and we conclude that the reported assessment instrument is valid as a measure of the teacher education program contributions to students’ competence in the five reported domains of the teacher practicum. Therefore, the instrument may be used as an overall evaluation of the complete program or may be slightly modified using the item format to assess distinct aspects of teacher education.
Highlights
Introduction and Research AimThis article addresses the development of an instrument to assess how well teacher education programs at three Norwegian universities prepare student teachers for their work as teachers
A major challenge in teacher education has been the problem of integrating academic subjects, subject didactics, and more general pedagogic content knowledge (Finne et al, 2011; Korthagen, 2001; Lid, 2013; NOKUT, 2006) Accompanying this challenge is the ongoing debate on the irrelevance of some aspects of teacher education and its ability to meet students’ needs (Korthagen, 2006)
From the above theoretical framework, empirical analysis and discussion, we conclude that the reported instrument for assessing quality in teacher education programs in the specific teacher practice domains is proved to have good content validity in the fields it measured
Summary
Introduction and Research AimThis article addresses the development of an instrument to assess how well teacher education programs at three Norwegian universities prepare student teachers for their work as teachers. Cochran-Smith points out an historical shift toward the evaluation of outcomes at the turn of the millennium (Cochran-Smith, 2001), which is the case for Norway (Solhaug, 2011) Having pointed out these issues, the present article discusses an instrument to assess teacher education’s contribution to students’ performance as novice teachers. There is no Norwegian standard for the teacher profession, but according to a government document, the curriculum for teacher education should meet seven different domains of competence (Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2009; Kunnskapsdepartementet, 2010) These are: 1) subject knowledge and five basic skills, 2) reflections on the relationship between school and society, 3) professional ethics as teachers, 4) preparation for good teaching in pedagogy and subject matter didactics, 5) classroom management and support for learning processes, 6) good cooperation and communication skills and 7) coping with change and professional development. We consider this to be an overall national competence framework for teacher education
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