Informed Intake: A Way to Improve Graduate Quality in Preservice Teacher Education?

• In Event: Effective Learning Environment: Contemporary Insights for Assessments and Strategies to Support Effective Teaching

Abstract

1. Objectives
As the efficiency and effectiveness of pre-service teacher training programmes partly depends on characteristics of commencing students (cf. Tang et al., 2015), it is important to identify prior to entry which students need personal advice or extracurricular training in specific skills to achieve the pursued standards of effective teaching performance.
In this contribution we report on the development of an online self-assessment instrument which can be used to identify critical student characteristics that make it difficult for students to achieve a good level of effective teaching performance during their internships in schools.

2. Perspective(s)
Teaching effectively during internships and professional job settings after graduation depends on various factors, including students’ personality, job motivation, attitudes, and available soft skills (Tang et al., 2015). In addition to personality dimensions as conscientiousness, openness to experience and agreeableness (Salgado, 1997), efficient study and work management, communication, leadership and teamwork skills as well as cultural empathy may be important factors that contribute to effective teaching performance in internships (Dembo, 2004, Tang et al, 2015, McAllister & Irvine, 2002).

3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The diagnostic self-assessment instrument consisted of a combination of open questions regarding motivation to become a teacher and a series of multi-item scales to assess students’ personality, work management disposition and self-perceptions of skills concerning communication, leadership, cooperation with others and cultural empathy. The assessment was delivered online to students from three cohorts of qualified bachelor students who entered a two-year pre-service teacher programme.

4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
The data from the assessment were linked to data about students’ performance in three consecutive internships, collected with the ICALT observation instrument (Van de Grift et al., 2014) at three time points. Effective teaching performance data, converted to grades, were obtained from an administrative database provided by the departmental administration. The relationship between student characteristics and effective teaching grades was investigated by means of stepwise multiple regression analyses and a path analysis.

5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
The study showed that an efficient work management disposition and cultural empathy in combination with personality characteristics impact pre-service teachers’ teaching performance in consecutive internships (see Figure 1).

6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
Countries around the world face issues in training and retaining quality teachers. Studies suggest that around 15 percent of the beginning teachers dropout within three years after the start of their career as a teacher due to work related stress and lack of support during the first years of their teaching career ( Helms-Lorenz, Van de Grift, & Maulana, 2016; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). The outcomes of this study indicate that students, who lack an efficient work management disposition and awareness and sensitivity concerning socio-cultural factors that impact learning, need additional advice and support as well as more close monitoring of their interactions with students during internships to develop the capacity to provide a safe and effective learning environment in classrooms.

Authors

• Cor Suhre, University of Groningen

• Ridwan Maulana, University of Groningen

• Marjon Fokkens-Bruinsma, University of Groningen