World Language Teacher Candidate Performance on Edtpa: An Exploratory Study.

Abstract: Federal and state legislation continues to promote teacher accountability in the United States. The new edTPA, a subject-specific teacher performance assessment, is purported to measure beginning teacher readiness and is being pilot tested and implemented for licensure and certification decisions across the country. In this exploratory quantitative study, the researchers examined edTPA scores of 21 world language teacher candidates from two teacher preparation programs and compared those results to the cut scores for the states of Washington and New York. Results indicated that participants performed best in the planning section and were most challenged by the assessment section. This research has implications for teacher certification candidates, world language teacher preparation programs, policy makers, and other stakeholders.Key words: foreign/second language teacher preparation, preparation and certification, pre-service teacher preparation, program monitoring and assessment, student teachers/internsGauging and monitoring teacher effectiveness occupies a critical place in federal and state educational policy. The No Child Left Behind Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) brought highly qualified into common parlance, and the later Race to the Top program required that, in order to receive full federal funding, states needed to measure teacher effectiveness (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). New state-level legislation focuses on teacher preparation and license or certification standards, highlighting teacher performance and effectiveness (Georgia Professional Standards Commission, 2014; Illinois State Board of Education, 2012).The newly developed edTPA was created by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) to assess new teacher readiness to teach in 27 different content areas (SCALE, 2013). This national standardized assessment, usually carried out during student teaching, was designed to measure teacher candidates' performance to plan, instruct, and assess student learning, focusing on pedagogical skills and informing licensure and certification decisions across the country (SCALE, 2013). However, at the time of this writing, no empirical research exists on the use of edTPA and its impact on content-specific teacher preparation programs. This exploratory study sought to begin the discussion by examining how teacher candidates from two world language teacher preparation programs scored on edTPA and how those scores compared to known passing scores in two states (New York and Washington) where edTPA has been fully implemented. Specifically, this study sought to use these data to evaluate the two programs and to gain insight into their teacher candidates' ability to succeed on edTPA.1Literature ReviewTeacher education programs have many stakeholders to whom they are accountable: the U.S. Department of Education; state boards of education; university and college programs and faculty members; accreditation bodies; teacher candidates; future employers; and perhaps most important, the teacher candidates' future students. This literature review explores those accountability systems; addresses varying definitions of teacher effectiveness; and compares existing teacher performance assessments, including edTPA.Accountability for Teacher Education ProgramsThe last three decades have been characterized by repeated efforts to reform the American educational system. A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) was perhaps the first in what has become an ongoing series of critiques of teacher education. With its focus on content classes and de-emphasis on pedagogical preparation, this report laid the foundation for subsequent discussions of, and proposals for, educational reform (e.g., the Holmes Group, 1986). The highly qualified teacher designation was introduced in the No Child Left Behind legislation (U. …