Performance Assessment in Teacher Education Programs

Performance assessment has emerged as a useful measure of teacher performance and is a valuable form of assessment. The chapter elaborates on the benefits of performance assessment in pre-service teacher training and will present findings of a study which focuses on two English Language Didactics courses of a Higher Education pre-service teacher training program for potential secondary state school ELT teachers of the Republic of Cyprus. The aim of the research was to investigate the trainees' progress, potential teaching ability, and confidence via the means of their assessment. The study conducted supported a mixed method approach, where there was sequential data gathering. The initial phase involved direct observations of student teachers' performance in combination with an evaluation of the lesson plans they would follow. This process informed the second type of data collection, which was conducted via evaluation forms, where student teachers were given the opportunity to evaluate and reflect upon the assessment process.