152
in continuous professional development throughout their careers (AITSL, 2014 ). It
is noteworthy that two supervising teachers raised concerns that the expectations at
the graduate level identified in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers
were ‘very high’ and ‘unrealistic for the amount of teaching experience of the stu-
dents’. In contrast, other supervising teachers commented on the clarity of expecta-
tions between their work as experienced teachers and the evaluation of preservice
teachers’ capabilities. Multiple supervising teachers commented on the value of the
rubric and assessment processes for inducting preservice teachers into the language
they are expected to understand and confidently use.
The commitment to the key feature of authentic assessment of preservice teach-
ers’ developing capability for this innovation necessitated making a ‘trade-off’
between the formative and summative purposes of the rubric (Jonsson & Mattsson,
2011 , p. 180). Reliable assessment rubrics should preferably be analytical (rather
than holistic) and task specific (as opposed to generic) and have few quality levels
(Jonsson & Svingby, 2007 ). However, these attributes must be balanced against
other needs and purposes. The rubric used in this study was analytical but not task
specific and had four quality levels (novice, emerging, graduate and proficient).
Therefore, it was not designed for maximum reliability but to support preservice
teacher learning through nuanced feedback and the tracking of progress over time
to help them ‘perform better next time they encounter a similar (but not identical
task)’ (Jonsson & Mattsson, 2011 , p. 173). The provision of developmental feed-
back at several levels appears to improve preservice teacher learning and agency
which was an important finding to emerge from this study. However, the impact of
the design decision to use multiple levels appeared to reduce inter-rater reliability of
the rubric, as not all assessors used the rubric as intended due to being based on the
language of the national standards which some participants found unfamiliar requir-
ing them to operationalise each descriptor before it could be assessed. Despite this
difficulty, the findings indicated that the rubric prompted supervising teachers to
adopt a more deductive approach which directed their attention to the full scope of
capabilities preservice teachers were expected to develop. This resulted in preser-
vice teachers focusing more attention on addressing equity goals of specific sub-
groups of students and ensuring excellence in educational outcomes for all students
(QCT, 2012 ).
The findings indicate that further actions are needed to ensure that all assessors
are able to interpret the assessment criteria and quality levels of the rubric in a con-
sistent and reliable manner. This is important so that preservice teacher assessment
is not dependent on which assessor is assigned to the preservice teacher (Jonsson &
Mattsson, 2011 ). The problematic issue which arises from attempting to capture the
complexity of teaching in a generic multilevel rubric can be addressed through the
distribution of examples relevant to different contexts and student needs to exem-
plify the concepts and observable performance features aligned with each standard
and level. Given the new national requirement for partnership agreements between
all teacher education providers and schools, there is also an opportunity to strengthen
the mentoring of all preservice teachers through professional development activities
which use these examples as part of practice moderation processes.
T.-A. Sweeney and B. Nielsen