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evidence regarding their fitness for teaching and provide a well-reasoned justifica-
tion as to its validity. The APST proficient level is also included after the graduate
level in the rubric. The rationale for this inclusion was that whilst it is not expected
that preservice teachers will attain this standard across all focus areas, there are
some preservice teachers who enter the program with considerable life and employ-
ment experiences and skills, who can demonstrate that they are able to perform, in
some aspects, as a practiced and effective classroom teacher.
The rubric is introduced to preservice teachers at the start of their studies to
familiarise them with what is expected of them over time and to engender their
capacity for self-assessment and self-monitoring of their developing knowledge and
practice. The deliberate development of preservice teachers’ awareness of their
emerging capabilities was designed to provide them with a sense of personal agency
in their own learning (Billett, 2008 ). The underlying premise is that there is long-
term value in promoting self-regulation of their learning in school environments
where learning is more contextual, ongoing and collaborative than academic learn-
ing (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2005 ; Tynjala, 2008 ). Preservice teachers need to
learn to deliberately plan their own learning, in addition to learning to manage well-
designed and structured learning tasks for their students (Niemi, 2002 ).
A primary intention of the rubric is to prompt preservice teachers to engage in
professional conversations to reflect on their progress towards becoming ‘classroom
ready’ (Craven et al., 2014 ). Its intention is to provoke conversations about how
their behaviour as a teacher impacts on students’ learning and their own learning
(Endedijk, Vermunt, Verloop, & Brekelmans, 2012 ). It is also designed to contribute
to the formation of their professional identity as they actively form and reform their
ideas of self and belonging (Ruohotie-Lyhty & Moate, 2016 ) and meet challenges
of working in contexts where there are discrepancies between their own beliefs and
the teaching practices preferred in their placement school (Beauchamp & Thomas,
2009 ).
All three professional assessors are required to use the rubric in a moderation
process to ensure that preservice teachers’ practice is aligned appropriately and con-
sistently with the performance levels, thereby increasing the reliability of the sum-
mative assessment. The goal of using the rubric is that there will be greater
consistency of focus by multiple, independent assessors (Ingvarson, 2011 ). Jonsson
and Mattsson ( 2011 ) make the point that ‘assessors need to be well acquainted with
the criteria and concepts used in the rubric so that they interpret the criteria in a
similar way’ (p. 174). The teacher educator assessor is an employee of the univer-
sity as well as an experienced classroom teacher, whilst the supervising teacher’s
role is to provide incremental feedback and guidance on all aspects of a preservice
teacher’s performance as he/she gradually assumes the role of the teacher. Because
supervising teachers often invest significantly in the development of the preservice
teacher and develop a strong personal connection, there is a perception that there is
a risk that supervising teachers ‘are unlikely to recommend failing a preservice
teacher’ (Parsell, 2013 , p. 15) where it is warranted. As such, a supervising teacher’s
assessment is often regarded as ‘highly subjective’ reflecting their ‘personal prin-
ciples and prejudices’ (Parsell, 2013 , p. 15). The rubric aims to assist supervising
T.-A. Sweeney and B. Nielsen