Introduction

In recent years, teacher education programs at higher education institutions have begun adopting a practice-based approach (McDonald, Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013). For instance, most states in the United States have adopted some teaching standards for teacher performance assessment recommended by the Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium, and these standards are also being used for pre-service teachers’ performance evaluation. In 2016, Turkish Department of Education also created some teacher observation criteria for teacher performance evaluation purposes, and teacher education programs at universities are closely following the developments, and adjusting their curricula accordingly.

Even though practice-based approach in teacher education is not a new idea, it has drawn more attention lately - again, mostly because some novice teachers feel that they are not ready to teach even after graduation, or first-year teachers face more problems compared to experienced teachers (Rust, 1994). As teacher education programs are aligning their regulations with teacher performance evaluation systems, and basing their courses on instructional performance, assessment of pre-service teachers’ performance has become an issue. Assessing pre-service teachers’ instructional performance is not easy, mostly because they are not teachers yet; but, most of the evaluation criteria are adapted from teacher evaluation forms which include such items as communication with students’ parents. It is also not easy because the number of observations a pre-service teacher would get might not reflect the reality. Teacher education programs must take equity into account considering different observers involved in the process as well. Therefore, adopting a comprehensive assessment tool that truly assess instructional performance, and that minimizes personal bias is essential for faculties of education.

Intern Keys is one of the assessment tools that is used for assessing pre-service teachers’ instructional performance. Intern Keys is described to be “not an observation checklist,” but a collection of standards that a pre-service teacher should meet (Elder, Ata, & Cramer, 2016, p. 2). The Intern Keys validation project is being conducted in the State of Georgia (USA) and was funded through a grant from the Georgia Network for Transforming Educator Preparation and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Research Question and Objectives

The current research investigated the construct validity of the Intern Keys survey which was developed to be used by faculty supervisors to assess the teaching effectiveness or performance of their advisees. Therefore, this study addressed the following research question:

Does the teacher candidate effectiveness assessment tool have an interpretable factor structure that aligns with theoretical assumptions?

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