New Horizons in Education

Abstract

Background: Current education reform in the U.S. requires teacher preparation programs to educate the “teachers-to-be” according to the certification standards set forth by the state. So far, there are few empirical studies that directly investigate whether students perceive themselves to be well prepared with respect to the standards, although considerable research has been conducted with respect to the issues of standards, teaching, and teacher preparation.

Aims: The goal of this study is to investigate the participants’ perception about their preparedness with respect to the ten-certification standards using a methodology that is suitable for examining psychological perceptions.

Sample: The participants were 117 teacher candidates enrolled in social studies methods courses in Fall 2002, Spring 2003, and Fall 2003. Among the participants, 40 were from Fall 2002; 32 from Spring 2003; and 45 from Fall 2003.

Method: Participants’ responses to questionnaire items were analyzed using multidimensional scale model.

Results: The results found that teacher candidates felt competent in three areas of teaching preparation and felt least competent in two areas. Their perceived competence in other areas was ambiguous.

Conclusion: The findings of this study may help our teacher education program re-evaluate its curriculum in the future. Particularly, the teacher education program in which this study was conducted needs to revise its curriculum to emphasize more on performance-based portfolios with respect to planning, multiple instructional strategies, motivation and classroom management, communication, profession growth, and assessment. Although the findings were unique to the institution under inquiry, the process used can be applied to other institutions that wish to conduct similar investigation for improvement of their teacher education program.

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