Identifying high quality candidates for the teaching profession needs to extend beyond GPAs and attestations. Establishing a comprehensive admissions process into initial teacher education courses requires attention to the characteristics and demands of the profession as well as the course program itself. In order to reduce attrition rates and support the provision of high quality teachers in Australia, The University of Melbourne has developed TeacherSelector – an assessment tool that follows an evidence-based approach to the selection of pre-service educators. The tool assesses a number of skills associated with successful completion of initial teacher education programs. It is based on research into quality teaching and is designed to improve the selection of students into teacher education programs. The TeacherSelector tool provides a holistic assessment, measuring both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects, including self and social interaction There is considerable evidence that cognitive ability is a predictor of job performance and is a significant factor influencing teachers’ performance in the classroom. Moreover, a teacher’s cognitive ability coupled with aspects of their personality and other non-cognitive variables may enhance commitment and responsibility towards the students. Therefore, selection procedures should acknowledge these two aspects: cognitive ability – which indicates what an individual is able to do – combined with measures of personality, conscientiousness, resilience, and other non-cognitive A total of 26 factors are measured across the literacy, numeracy, self, and social interaction domains. This study outlines a series of statistical analyses via structural equation modelling on a dataset of 290 participants to investigate the measured variables and their ability to predict subsequent course achievement. This presentation aims to provide an initial insight into which aspects of the cognitive and non-cognitive variables are better predictors of students’ academic performance in their initial teacher education course and argue the relevance of such tests for teacher candidate selection.

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