School Based Experience Assessment Tool Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of Two Universities in South Africa

Abstract

Teaching practice is an integral part in the Bachelor of Education degree and Post Graduate Certificate in Education studies. During school visits, student teachers are assessed using the school-based experience (SBE) assessment tool. The SBE tool needs to assess student teacher quality, performance, and effectiveness in the teaching practice exercise. The study aims to evaluate the quality of the SBE assessment tool used by assessors. To achieve the aim, a case study of the comparative analysis of the SBE tool between two Universities was conducted. The comparative analysis applies content analysis that merge themes. It was found from the comparison that both tools contain themes such as teacher professional profile, lesson preparation, presentation of the lesson feedback and suggestions. These themes can be used as benchmark for the best SBE assessment tool to be used to indicate good quality of teachers produced by the Universities. Effective teachers are those who produce gains in learner achievement as measured by gains in standardized tests. Therefore, the tool needs to gather evidence for teacher effectiveness and display sufficient resources to produce high quality teaching and productive assessment. Moreover, the teacher assessment tool should entail theories such as transfer of learning, pedagogical techniques that cater for learner characteristics and the curriculum among others