Do Teacher Students’ Competences Develop in Practical Field Experiences and Does University Training Support This Development?

Author(s):

Christoph Schneider(presenting / submitting)Rainer Bodensohn(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 03 C, Placements in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-10

17:15-18:45

Room:

A-203

Chair:

Jae Major

Discussant:

Dean Robson

Contribution

There is strong inter-European agreement on the outstanding importance of high-quality teacher education systems (ETUCE, 2008). Yet, there is little cross-national consensus concerning explicit criteria or standards to assess the quality of teacher education, beyond national initiatives (e.g. NBPTS, 2002) and approaches focusing on the general assessment of the outcomes of study programmes, but not specifically on teacher education (Gonzales & Wagenaar, 2006). Furthermore, while the overall importance of output orientation in teacher education has been stressed (e.g. Cochran-Smith, 2001), methods of assessing the outcomes of teacher education range from self-reports and tests of teaching knowledge to work samples and observations of practice (Darling-Hammond, 2006). In Germany, a framework of what teacher students are expected to learn in both pre-service training at university and subsequent in-service training has been issued by a national authority (KMK [Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany], 2004; 2011). These “Standards for Teacher Training” explicitly define the competences teachers-to-be must possess upon entering service and, as such, encompass the four domains termed “teaching”, “education”, “assessment” and “innovation”. The KMK’s standards have been issued with the aim of providing an overall normative framework of orientation for teacher educators and teacher education institutions. In the KOSTA project, we have developed instruments operationalising the KMK’s standards for practical evaluation purposes. KOSTA is an acronym for “Orientation towards Competences and Standards in Teacher Training”. The project’s aim is to assess the development process of teacher students’ competences during the university-based stage of teacher education including practical training episodes. This typically ends with a Master’s degree in education, and is followed by a 12-to-24- months stage of in-service teacher education (preparatory service) before entering service (for more detail see KMK, 2011).

Based on the findings of earlier research employing the Oser (2001) “Standards of Good Teacher Behaviour” framework of reference for assessing teacher students’ competence development in practical field experiences (Bodensohn & Schneider, 2008), we hypothesise a longitudinal increase in competence across all domains of the KMK’s standards, and most prominently so in the “teaching” domain. The research question of whether the perceived quality of university training supports students’ competence development has, however, not been raised before. Here, we expect mildly positive effects.

To our knowledge, no other European country has issued a comparably concise collection of standards defining competences to be developed during teacher education. Therefore, the adaptation of this framework to the national requirements of European countries and/or the establishment of a joint (cross-national) set of standards by the scientific community may prove helpful in (a) enhancing goal clarity concerning the ends of teacher education programmes and in (b) creating a common basis for a comparative evaluation of national teacher education systems. To support these aims, we welcome researchers from all European countries to use or adapt our instruments and research design to their needs.

Method

In a German university with a strong focus on teacher education, N = 429 teacher students evaluated themselves in two several-week practical field experience episodes (t1 and t2) in the course of their pre-service studies at the university. For each of the standards within the KMK/KOSTA framework, students rated the overall importance, the frequency with which they displayed the competence in practical field experiences, and the degree to which they felt the university trained to comply with the standard, i.e. the perceived quality of university training. As the KMK’s standards for teacher training have not been applied for practical evaluation purposes to date, we initially report scale characteristics and the empirical structure of the measures, as compared to the normative model underlying the KMK’s standards. Next, we report developmental effects over the time course for each competence domain (i.e. for “teaching”, “education”, “assessment” and “innovation”) by means of confirmatory latent change models. Again by means of latent variable analysis, we last address the question whether the perceived quality of teacher training within one domain affects the frequency of applying behaviour elements within that domain.

Expected Outcomes

Structural and reliability analyses of the measures indicate that the normative structure of the KMK’s standards can widely be replicated in empirical analyses. Developmental effects, in summary, are of moderate magnitude. First, the self-reported frequency of behaviour in accordance with the standards is significantly higher at t2 than at t1 in all domains except for “education”, suggesting that it may be particularly difficult for teacher students to improve their “in vivo” educational competences in relatively short field experiences. Second, while the perceived quality of university training is overall poor, a rise from t1 to t2 in perceived quality can be found for all domains except “teaching”, suggesting that teacher students may be sceptical to whether teaching strategies acquired in university training work out later in practice. Across all domains, however, teacher students with higher quality-of-training ratings also ascribe themselves higher practical competences; indeed, they behave more frequently in accordance with the standards. While it cannot be completely ruled out that these effects incorporate a “self-fulfilling prophecy” component, the latter findings indicate that teacher students feel overall that their personal development is indeed supported by university training.

References

Bodensohn, R., & Schneider, C. (2008). Was nützen Praktika? Evaluation der Block-Praktika im Lehramt – Erträge und offene Fragen nach sechs Jahren [The Benefit of Practical Phases – Six Years of Evaluation of the University Stage of Teacher Education]. Empirische Pädagogik, 22(3). Cochran-Smith, M. (2001). The outcomes question in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 527–546. Darling-Hammond, L. (2006). Assessing Teacher Education: The usefulness of multiple measures for assessing program outcomes. Journal of Teacher Education, 57(2), 120–138. ETUCE (2008). Teacher Education in Europe: An ETUCE Policy Paper Adopted by the Executive Board on 14th April 2008. Brussels: ETUCE. Retrieved from http://etuce.homestead.com/Publications2008/ETUCE_PolicyPaper_en_web.pdf Gonzales, J. & Wagenaar, R. (2006). Tuning Educational Structures in Europe. Retrieved from http://www.unideusto.org/tuningeu/images/stories/documents/ General_Brochure_final_version.pdf KMK [Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany] (2004). Standards für die Lehrerbildung: Bildungswissenschaften: Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz vom 16.12.2004. Retrieved from http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2004/2004_12_16-Standards-Lehrerbildung.pdf KMK [Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany], (2011). The Education System in the Federal Republic of Germany 2010/2011 (Excerpt). Retrieved from http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/doc/Dokumentation/Bildungswesen_en_pdfs/teachers.pdf NTPBS (2002). What teachers should know and be able to do. Retrieved from http://www.ntpbs.org/UserFiles/what-teachers.pdf Oser, F. (2001). Standards: Kompetenzen von Lehrpersonen. In F. Oser & J. Oelkers (Eds.), Die Wirksamkeit der Lehrerbildungssysteme. Von der Allrounderbildung zur Ausbildung professioneller Standards ; Nationales Forschungsprogramm 33, Wirksamkeit unserer Bildungssysteme (pp. 215–342). Chur: Rüegger.

Author Information

Christoph Schneider (presenting / submitting)

University of Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau

Department of Childhood and Adolescent Education

Landau

Rainer Bodensohn (presenting)

Universität Koblenz-Landau