Source: Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 39, No. 2, May 2011, 113–123.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
The goal of this study is to examine differences between preservice and inservice teachers’ knowledge of, perceived skills in, and attitudes toward educational measurement.
In addition, the study aims at examining whether
(a) teaching practicum makes a difference to preservice teachers’ educational measurement knowledge, perceived skills, and attitudes;
(b) teaching experience makes a difference to inservice teachers’ educational measurement knowledge, perceived skills, and attitudes; and
(c) preservice training in educational measurement makes a difference to inservice teachers’ educational measurement knowledge, perceived skills, and attitudes.
Participants
The participants in this study were 279 preservice teachers and 233 inservice teachers teaching grades 5 to 10 in Oman.
The preservice teachers were surveyed at the end of a Spring 2008 semester course in educational measurement in the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University.
Instrumentation
A self-report questionnaire of four parts was used in this study.
Results showed that inservice teachers demonstrated a lower level of knowledge, a higher level of perceived skilfulness, and a more favourable attitude toward educational measurement than preservice teachers.
Furthermore, it was found that inservice teachers with less experience in this study demonstrated on average a higher level of educational measurement knowledge than highly experienced inservice teachers.
In addition, inservice teachers in this study with a preservice educational measurement course demonstrated on average a higher level of educational measurement knowledge than those without a preservice educational measurement course.
These findings imply that measurement training could have a positive impact on educational measurement knowledge.
The findings also reveal that preservice teachers with teaching practicum tended to have on average higher levels of educational measurement knowledge and perceived skills as well as more positive attitudes than those without teaching practicum.
Hence, the authors recommend that continuous inservice training programs in educational measurement should be designed to compensate for inservice teachers’ low levels of educational measurement knowledge.
The authors also recommend that the educational measurement course be offered while students are having teaching practicum in their program so that they have opportunities to receive feedback regarding their practices related to educational measurement.