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Assessment in HE Initial Teacher Education: Competing Contexts Discourses and the Unobtainable Pursuit for Fidelity

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The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research

Abstract

In England, student teachers have a number of routes into teaching. One of the key routes is that of Higher Education (or Higher Education Institution) based Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Student teachers on these programs experience assessment in a multitude of ways. They are assessed in their academic work and their performance on placement, and then they assess the pupils they work with. Student teachers need to meet particular assessment criteria in order to qualify as a teacher, and they study assessment as a subject, the underpinning theory, national policies, and perceived “good” practice. Furthermore, they experience all of this across three, often competing, contexts: Higher Education, school education, and Initial Teacher Education itself. This chapter seeks to examine the conflicting discourses, contexts, and practices that English ITE student teachers need to navigate in order to succeed, or at least make sense of assessment.

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Elbra-Ramsay, C. (2022). Assessment in HE Initial Teacher Education: Competing Contexts Discourses and the Unobtainable Pursuit for Fidelity. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59533-3_16-1

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