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Andrea Duró Kovácsné: Assessment Related Knowledge And Competences Of Teacher Trainees

The emergence of the need for assessment which comprehends the whole spectrum of activities in the school, and the accompanying re-evaluation of the teacher’s competencies in assessment and evaluation draw increasing attention to the education of teacher trainees in this respect. This paper gives an overview of some aspects of this issue by presenting results from a questionnaire-based empirical survey on a sample of students from the University of Miskolc and the University of Pécs in Hungary, in the fifth year of their studies and participating in pre-service teacher training. The primary objectives were to identify (1) how teacher trainees prepare for their role in assessment in their teacher training courses; (2) what assessment knowledge and beliefs they hold; and (3) how they judge their own competencies in this regard. The results show that students are not aware of the complexity of assessment functions. For them, assessment has a restricted sense only, meaning the evaluation of students. Consequently, they consider themselves most prepared as regards educational and psychological knowledge related to the evaluation of students and emphasise assessment methods embedded in traditional teaching practices when realising assessment functions. This scattered knowledge is probably explained by the disadvantaged situation of the assessment issue. With only a few exceptions (e.g. didactic or educational psychology), this issue is dealt with only from certain aspects in both theoretical and practical training, and, as a result, students lack a well founded knowledge base of assessment functions and activities. Furthermore, pre-service teacher training offers but scarce possibilities for gaining experience from practice. The present results support earlier findings and make it the more reasonable to devote greater attention to the preparation of students for assessment in the framework of university-based pre-service teacher training in order to ensure its higher efficiency.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 104. Number 2. 203-224. (2004)

Address for correspondence: Kovácsné Duró Andrea, Miskolci Egyetem, BTK Neveléstudományi Tanszék, H–3515 Miskolc-Egyetemváros

 
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Magyar Tudományos Akadémia