Signature assessments in Initial Teacher Training: what kinds of assessment proliferate? A content analysis of assessment practices across higher education institutions in England

Assessment matters. It is an essential aspect of the learning process (Leenknecht et al., 2021) and the ‘Assessment and feedback benchmarking tool’, produced by The National Union of Students (2015), suggests it remains a point of particular interest for higher education (HE) students. Buckley (2021) goes further suggesting a crisis beckons, stating “questions on assessment are pretty much the lowest-scoring questions on the NSS.” (p. 1009) Literature also suggests that students continue to be assessment-driven, thus efforts to demystify and create greater transparency around assessment is essential for HE institutions. Whilst aspects of initial teacher training (ITT) assessment are dictated by the Department for Education, others are left for individual institutions to dictate. Very little literature explores the types of assessment pre-service trainee teachers engage in, thus teacher education assessment is an area ripe for research and scholarship. Therefore, this research investigates the kinds of assessment utilised by HE institutions for ITT undergraduate programmes of study resulting in qualified teacher status (QTS). This exploration is underpinned by the work of Shulman (2005), particularly his focus on the term 'signature pedagogies'. These pedagogies, Shulman argues, are those ways of thinking, speaking and doing in teaching and learning which are discipline specific. He suggests that these pedagogies subject individuals to “the early socialization into the practices and values of a field…” which “prefigure the cultures of professional work…” (p. 59) This research explores if this is also the case for assessment practices. By extrapolating Shulman’s concept of signature pedagogies to formulate a concept of signature assessments, this research seeks to demonstrate that discipline-specific assessments are extremely common amongst ITT programmes.Unobtrusive internet research is utilised to explore publicly available information pertaining to the types of assessment practices utilised by HE institutions in England in trainee teacher with QTS programmes of study. Brabazon (2021) argues that unobtrusive research is an increasingly fruitful field for research due to the growing sites of availability and the wealth of data available. She states “The online environment has intensified and magnified the scope and scale of the textual systems available for analysis…” thus “there is expansive material about daily life that is available in public for scholars to analyse." (p. 45) Content analysis is utilised, underpinned by the work of Krippendorf (2004), to present quantitative data detailing the frequency of assessment types. This is explored and presented in tabulation for perusal, exploration and further scholarship.