Abstract:
After completing a degree in relevant content areas prospective high school teachers in New Zealand typically enrol in a one-year Diploma at a College of Education. The year is intensive and a critical component is supervised teaching within selected high schools. The student teacher is attached to an experienced teacher, an Associate Teacher, who accepts responsibility for the day to day supervision of the student teacher’s teaching experience. During each attachment a Visiting Lecturer for the College of Education also observes the student teaching. This study examines the levels of agreement between the Associate Teacher and Visiting Lecturer’s evaluations of 150 student teachers teaching experience on their third and penultimate school placement. The analyses examine correlations between the judge’s holistic ratings of teaching competence and ratings of specific teaching competencies. The values of the correlations vary dramatically and significant differences exist between the mean ratings of the Associate Teachers and the Visiting Lecturers. These differences are discussed. Structural analyses of the rating instruments are reported and the implications of the results for the assessment of practiucm in pre-service teacher education programmes identified.