Using Vignette Testing to Measure Student Science Teachers’ Professional Competencies

Abstract

Instruments to measure teachers’ professional competencies with good context validity have been discussed before. We propose a measuring instrument based on vignette testing that analyzes professional competencies for science education using extended teaching contexts. It assesses pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and compares it to pedagogical knowledge (PK). The test consists of text vignettes that describe authentically complex teaching situations in biology, chemistry and physics and then asks open-ended questions. It is analyzed by means of content analysis, thereby integrating quantitative and qualitative methods. The evaluation of the instrument is indicative of a valid measurement instrument and has shown promising potential for assessing competencies. We used the vignette test to compare the competencies of students in different training programs and with different educational backgrounds with the objective of improving science teacher education. The testing format developed in this study proved to be able to assess teachers’ professional competencies validly in their situational context of teaching. Results show a significant increase in competencies among science teacher students in the course of their training. The results of the control group (science students not pursuing a career in teaching) are remarkably poorer. Moreover, differences were identified when comparing the vignette based competency profiles of science teacher students and teacher students of other subjects, the latter scoring significantly lower in PCK. In addition, we compared competencies of students from different teacher training programs and found differences for students trained in interdisciplinary approaches (combining the disciplines biology, chemistry and physics) and students in separate-discipline approaches.