Measuring biology teachers’ professional vision: Development and validation of a video-based assessment tool

• Main Authors: Maria Kramer, Christian Förtsch, Julia Stürmer, Sonja Förtsch, Tina Seidel, Birgit J. Neuhaus
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2020-01-01
• Series: Cogent Education
• Subjects: science education; teaching effectiveness; instructional quality; professional vision; situation-specific skills; authenticity; video-based assessment
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2020.1823155

A key challenge for teachers is the evaluation of teaching and learning situations in the classroom. Video-based instruments are considered as effective tools for measuring teachers’ skills for evaluating classroom situations. This article reports the development and validation of a video-based assessment tool for measuring biology teachers’ professional vision. Analyses of interviews using think-aloud protocols with in-service biology teachers showed that they perceived the staged videos in the video-based assessment tool as authentic. Furthermore, they identified biology-specific dimensions of instructional quality in the videos, and used aspects of professional vision while reasoning about the identified situations. Thus, results indicate the suitability of the video-based assessment tool for capturing professional vision with the potential to be used in further interventions within teacher education programs.