Assessing the potential to teach: Lessons from an education assessment centre and later classroom practice

RICHARD CHURCHES AND COLIN PENFOLD EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT TRUST, UK Teacher development is complex and takes place over time. This said, despite there being much evidence about the factors that contribute to teacher professional growth, little research has looked at whether abilities prior to initial teacher training influence early practice in the classroom. This article reports on the first two analysis points in a four-year longitudinal study looking at the psychometric properties of an assessment centre used for school-centred initial teacher training recruitment. As well as assessing the approach’s construct validity and internal reliability, we have been looking at correlation and regression data to evaluate which assessment centre scores predict later classroom performance. Classroom simulation was a better predictor of later classroom teaching ability than other selection activities. Full statistical data and information about the measures used are online (Churches and Lawra