Predicting Teacher Candidates＇ Success in Their Final School Practicum.pdfVIP

US-ChinaEducationReviewA．ISSN 216l-623X February2014，Vo1．4，No．2，77-86 a Ll5 i-ilN a PredictingTeacherCandidates’Successin TheirFina1SchoolPracticum Kim CalderStegemann ThompsonRiversUniversity，Kamloops，Canada Everyyear，theteachereducationprogram atThompsonRiversUniversiyt (TRU)dealswithteachercandidates whoareunsuccessfulintheirfinalschoolpracticum．Toteaseoutpotentialfactorsofsuccessandfailure．wehave collectedandanalyzedscoresonthefourintakecomponents：incominggradepointaverage(GPA)，letterofintent， writing sample，and interview．Through statisticalna alyses，we have determined a number of significant relationships，amongthesebeingaconnectionbetweenintakeinterview scoresandsuccessonthepracticum．These findingshaveinfluencedourintka eproceduresnadmethodsofmentoring，scaffolding，andsupportingourteacher candidatesthroughoutour2-yearBachelorofEducation(B．Ed．)program． Keywords．pre-serviceteachereducation，admissionprocedures，predictingpracticum success Introduction Teachereducation programshave an enormousresponsibility to produce the mostqualified and dedicatedteacherstomeetthechallengingneedsofchildren in today’spublicschools．Forthebenefitof school—agedchildren，teachereducationprogramsmustactas“gatekeepers”(Caskey，Peterson， Temple， 2001)，recruitingthemostcapablestudentsanddenyingthosewhom areunsuitablefortheprofession (Kosnik，Brown，Beck，2005)．Someoftheimpetusofrthispracticehascomefrom theNoChildLeft Behind Actin theUnited States，which callsofrheightened teaching standardsand initiatesmeansto increasethenumberoftrainedteachers(particularlytoteachindifficult—to—staffschools)(Boyd，Grossman， Lankofrd，Loeb，Wyckoff