Getting beyond “gut feeling”: understanding how mentors judge readiness to teach

Abstract

Assessing whether or not a teacher candidate is ready to take their own class is a high-stakes decision that requires consideration of multiple, often competing, sources of information. Three research instruments were designed to explore how mentors judge readiness to teach during final practicum placements. This article describes the three instruments. It discusses how the three tasks worked as ways to understand how people judge readiness to teach and as ways to develop mentors’ judgement making. While there was broad agreement about what was important in this judgment, the data from all three instruments suggest that individual judges rely on their own experience and frames of reference when deciding about readiness to teach, leading to variability in the decisions they make.

Keywords:

• assessment
• initial teacher education
• practicum

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of our collaborative research team: Barbara Ala’alatoa, Dianne Hughes, Gay Turner, Helen Villers, Jill Murray, Joan Maitland, Kathy Reed, Lexie Grudnoff, Phil Spriggs, Sandra Aitken, Sandra Chandler, Virginia Kung, Vivienne Mackisack, and Wendy Kofoed.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative.

Notes on contributors

Fiona Ell

Dr Fiona Ell is a lecturer and researcher in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland.

Mavis Haigh

Dr Mavis Haigh works part-time as an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland where she is engaged in research in initial teacher education.