Twenty-sixth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

Most per-service teachers need to pass at least one if not several examinations that profess to measure their ability to teach prior to the teacher candidate being allowed to enter the profession. One such assessment in the United States, the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), is a multiple-measure performance assessment system, designed to determine the readiness level of pre-service teachers entering the education profession, evaluates their competence on the cycle of effective teaching including planning, instruction and assessment. The developers of edTPA, The Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE), contend that edTPA promotes essential teaching skills that improve student learning. However, there is no research that connects this pre-service requirement with actual working teachers’ implementation. The presenter is engaged in a study to uncover the generalization of the edTPA effective teaching elements by novice working teachers through surveys and focus groups to address central research questions: To what extent do novice working teachers, who participated in the pre-service edTPA assessment process? How do scores on edTPA correlate with novice working teachers’ implementation of edTPA elements? Understanding the extent to which the edTPA skills are generalized into practice can reinforce the edTPA process or inform change. The results of this suburban based study will serve to inform future research on the veracity of other similiar teacher certification exams.