The impact of the Teacher Performance Assessment in Initial Teacher Education

Assessment plays a central role in learning and teaching. Despite the strong empirical evidence for the use of assessment for formative purposes, major educational reforms continue to use high-stakes test results as bases for meeting accountability, deemed to improve teaching quality and consequently, increase student outcomes. The introduction of Teacher Performance Assessment (TPA) in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Australia is a classic example of this practice. We reflected on our experience implementing the Graduate Teacher Performance Assessment (GTPA) over the last three years and identified some issues. The accountability-driven nature of GTPA harms the quality, equity, and viability of ITE. Also, it puts pressure on the ITE curriculum to revert back to teaching to the GTPA, where ITE providers re-orient their work to meeting the accountability agenda. In addition, it continues to narrow the focus of ITE curriculum and pedagogical practices. Furthermore, the primacy of GTPA over other assessments across the ITE program brings risks. A lack of attention to a broader set of assessments that support formative learning and teaching has distorted the nature of ITE providers’ work and led to negative attitudes. The dominance of one assessment as a data source for various reporting requirements shows what really matters in the system, which eventually shapes the wider community’s perspective on assessment. This symbolism plays a major role in how the system operates, using one single assessment to report students’ learning rather than encouraging the use of a range of assessment to support learning and teaching.