ABSTRACT
The edTPA, a performance assessment designed to generate reliable and valid measures of teaching practice, increasingly is used as a gatekeeping mechanism for beginning teacher licensure in various states, including New York, Washington State, Wisconsin, and Georgia. One of the edTPA’s key components is the demonstration of instructional practice by video recording. This article explores threats to validity associated with using video segments as part of the edTPA. Based on interviews with 24 teaching candidates from New York and Washington State, results show that candidates had difficulty fully addressing the competencies assessed by the edTPA, thoroughly representing their teaching practices, and learning from the process of analyzing their videos, affecting content validity, ecological validity, and consequential validity, respectively. One implication is that the utility of the video records may be limited to corroborating and triangulating claims made in the written commentaries, rather than serving as authoritative approximations of teaching practice.
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Notes on contributors
Jeffrey Choppin
Jeffrey Choppin teaches mathematics education courses and researches mathematics teachers’ perceptions and uses of curriculum materials in Common Core contexts. He also explores teacher education candidates’ experiences in high-stakes contexts.
Kevin Meuwissen
Kevin Meuwissen teaches social studies education courses and researches how secondary social studies teachers develop a deliberative stance toward curriculum, instruction, and the political institution of schooling.