Applicant Reactions to a Situational Judgment Test used for Selection into Initial Teacher Training

We considered applicants’ perceptions of the use of a pilot situational judgment test (SJT) designed for selection into primary and secondary teacher training programs in the UK. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 304 applicants (73% female) to two postgraduate (PGCE) training programs in the 2013-2014 application cycle. Participants were asked to provide feedback on the content of the SJTs and on the appropriateness of the tests for selection into teacher training. Results from the rating scales showed that most of the applicants (76.7%) found the content and format of the pilot selection tool favourable. Results from open-ended questions suggested that applicants were aware of issues of procedural justice and fairness in selection for teacher training, with a recommendation that separate selection tests should be created for primary and secondary applicants

Measuring Teacher Engagement: Development of the Engaged Teachers Scale (ETS)

The goal of this study was to create and validate a brief multi-dimension scale of teacher engagement—the Engaged Teachers Scale (ETS)—that reflects the particular characteristics of teachers’ work in schools. We collected data from four separate samples of teachers (total N = 823), and followed five steps in developing and validating the ETS.  The result of our five steps of analysis was a 16-item, 4-factor scale of teacher engagement that shows evidence of reliability, validity, and usability for further research. The four factors of the ETS consist of: cognitive engagement, emotional engagement, social engagement: students, and social engagement: colleagues. The ETS was found to correlate positively with a frequently used work engagement measure (the UWES) and to be positively related to, but empirically distinct, from a measure of teachers’ self-efficacy. Our key contribution to the measurement of teacher engagement is the novel inclusion of social engagement with students as a key component of overall engagement at work for teachers. We propose that social engagement should be considered in future iterations of work engagement measures in a range of settings

Looking to GROW: The absence of goal setting in post-lesson mentoring conversations on work-integrated learning placements

The post-lesson mentoring conversation on work-integrated learning placements in teacher education is an opportunity for students to critically reflect on their practice. The potential for this learning to take place is diminished however, if the mentor is unskilled in the art of leading these conversations. This skill involves creating a dialogue where the mentee can discuss their practice in relation to learning goals. This study analyzed the transcripts of 54 post-lesson mentoring conversations. The study found that goals were rarely mentioned when conversations were closer to monologues than dialogues. If this is representative of the larger sample, then the mentoring monologue constitutes a waste of the latent learning potential of the post-lesson mentoring conversation. The implications of the study center on the post-lesson mentoring conversation requiring more scaffolding in the way of protocols that promote growth through a critical dialogue of the professional learning goals of the teacher education student

Developing a Proof-of-Concept Selection Test for Entry into Primary Teacher Education Programs

The purpose of this article is to report on the development of a proof-of-concept situational judgment test (SJT) to assist in the selection of candidates for primary teacher education (ITE) programs. Nine development steps involving practising teachers, teacher educators, and applicants to ITE programs were carried out to establish target attributes and to develop content for the test. The results from administering the test to 124 primary ITE candidates showed a near-normal distribution, high levels of reliability, and significant positive correlations with a range of concurrently administered interview scores. We conclude with a description of the necessary next steps needed to implement evidence-supported teacher education selection processes in a range of international settings

Measuring teachers' enjoyment, anger, and anxiety : The Teacher Emotions Scales (TES)

The emotions of teachers are considered relevant not only for their own well-being but also for the functioning of classrooms. Nevertheless, research on teacher emotions has been slow to emerge, and scales for their assessment via self-report are generally lacking. In the present research we developed four-item scales for three emotions considered most relevant in the context of teaching: enjoyment, anger, and anxiety (Teacher Emotions Scales, TES). Based on data of 944 teachers, we tested German and English language versions of the TES for reliability, internal and external validity, and cross-language equivalence, while exploring the utility of both a general and a student-group specific variant. All scales proved to be highly reliable, and confirmatory factor analysis supported internal validity by showing that three-factor models (enjoyment, anger, and anxiety) were superior to single-factor or two-factor (positive vs. negative affect) models. The external validation analyses provided consistent evidence for theoretically meaningful relations with teachers' general affect, burnout, job satisfaction, and teacher self-efficacy. These findings were robust across multiple studies. In addition, consistent relationships with student ratings of teaching behaviors were found. Analyses of measurement invariance revealed that the English and the German language versions were fully structurally equivalent und displayed metric invariance