Examination of General Competencies and Needs of Pre-School and Classroom Teacher Candidates in Terms of Assessment and Evaluation Course

This study examines the general competencies and the requirements of classroom and preschool teacher candidates in terms of assessment and evaluation course. The study group consisted of 140 4th-year teacher candidates randomly selected from a total of 256 teacher candidates studying at Classroom Teaching and Preschool departments of Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Education Faculty, Turkey. In this study, a mixed research approach and a convergent design, in which quantitative and qualitative studies are used to support each other's strengths, were used. To collect quantitative data, the “Measurement and Evaluation Common Competency Perception Scale for Teacher Candidates” (MECCPSTC), which was developed by Nartgün (2008), was used. The qualitative data of the study were obtained thorough the open-ended questions that were asked to 13 teacher candidates through focus group interview technique. In the analysis of the quantitative data, descriptive statistics, t-test and one-way ANAVO were used. Content analysis was used in the analysis of the qualitative data. The findings showed that approximately one fourth of the teacher candidates had the opinion that they were “sufficient and very sufficient” in terms of their learning in the assessment and evaluation course. The scores of three quarters of the teacher candidates obtained from the scale were at “moderate and very insufficient” interval. In addition, it was examined whether there was a significant difference between the scores of teacher candidates obtained from Basic concepts” (BC), “Measurement techniques” (MT), “Statistical analysis and Reporting” (SAT) dimensions, and total score of the scale in terms of age, gender, department and belief in appointment variables. The codes obtained from the analysis of qualitative data were grouped under themes. Each theme was arranged and interpreted in a table with the codes within the scope. The results obtained from the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data were combined and discussed and recommendations were developed.