Perspectives for Defining Student Teacher Performance-Based Teaching Skills Indicators to Provide Formative Feedback through Learning Analytics

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the possibilities for performance-based evaluation of student teachers’ teaching skills in their field practice using learning analytics (LA)—a computer-based instructional system for documenting assessment results, and providing specified feedback on the achievement of expected objectives and suggestions for corrective and further learning activities. The research literature on LA applications in pre-service teacher education reveals that its application at this level of sophistication calls for reliable specific performance-based indicators of teaching to model teaching competences. Such defined indicators should allow for the statistical modeling of teachers’ progression in teaching skills. Our analysis of the literature regarding defining teaching and teacher competence standards and identifying performance-based indicators for assessing progress in teaching skills, led us to conclude there was no formal procedure for deducting performance-based indicators of teaching competence, except expert ratings coordinated by the general ideas of teaching quality. The available performance-based assessment matrices (representing performance levels by teaching tasks) of teaching competence that are used by teacher educators tend to be context-sensitive and call for adaptation when used in the conditions of another country. Also, the reporting of teaching activities (typically using a portfolio format) and quantifying the entries using performance indicators for LA requires a highly formalized coding system to preserve the semantics of the initial data in the models of progress in teaching skills. For avoiding the risk of introducing too many atomic indicator behaviours of student teachers, focusing only on essential teaching competencies via the application of the emerging concept of core practices is suggested.