Teacher educators’ predictability and student selection paradigms in entrance examinations for the Finnish Primary School Teacher Education programme

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cete20 European Journal of Teacher Education ISSN: 0261-9768 (Print) 1469-5928 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cete20 Teacher educators’ predictability and student selection paradigms in entrance examinations for the Finnish Primary School Teacher Education programme Ville Mankki, Marita Mäkinen & Pekka Räihä To cite this article: Ville Mankki, Marita Mäkinen & Pekka Räihä (2019): Teacher educators’ predictability and student selection paradigms in entrance examinations for the Finnish Primary School Teacher Education programme, European Journal of Teacher Education, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2019.1672653 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1672653 © 2019 Association for Teacher Education in Europe. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Published online: 22 Oct 2019. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 291 View related articles View Crossmark data ARTICLE Teacher educators’predictability and student selection paradigms in entrance examinations for the Finnish Primary School Teacher Education programme Ville Mankki , Marita Mäkinen and Pekka Räihä Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland ABSTRACT This article investigates the perceived and actual predictability of teacher educators working as assessors in entrance examinations for the Finnish Primary School Teacher Education (PSTE) programme. The section examining perceived predictability was conducted as a survey. The data for actual predictability, containing student teachers’entrance examination scores and student achievements, was collected from the student register. The findings indicate that although teacher educators consider themselves able to predict applicants’performance in the PSTE programme, their actual predictability in entrance examinations was poor. The assessments predicted only slightly student teachers’study pace in the PSTE programme, while better scores in entrance examinations predicted, in fact, weaker grades in studies. Teacher educators also conform to hidden quotas based on Finnish student selection paradigms in awarding better entrance examination scores to male and older applicants. The findings highlight teacher educators’need for more structured professional learning in a gatekeeping context. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 18 January 2018 Accepted 4 August 2019 KEYWORDS Teacher educators; student selection; entrance examinations; Primary School Teacher Education Introduction Teacher training selections are of great importance for bringing those applicants who are the most suitable for the teaching profession into teacher education programmes. While many countries struggle with finding ways to attract young people to apply for teacher training (OECD 2015), in Finland professions in the field of education have for a long time been highly competitive. Finland’shighquality master’s level teachers and research-based teacher education have been credited for its phenomenal PISA success in 2004 (OECD 2004) and scoring among the top countries in mathematics, reading and science (OECD 2016) and collaborative problem solving (OECD 2017a) ever since. Teachers are trusted and respected and the status of the teaching profession has remained very high over the years (Tirri 2014). Even financial shortcomings, such as smaller salaries compared to average teachers’ wages in OECD and EU countries and to similarly educated workers in Finland (OECD CONTACT Ville Mankki ville.mankki@tuni.fiFaculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, 33014, Finland EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1672653 © 2019 Association for Teacher Education in Europe. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. 2018), have not decreased the popularity of teacher education. In fact, entering teacher education has become even more difficult. For example, in Finnish Primary School Teacher Education (PSTE) programmes, only 10–11 percent of applicants have been admitted since 2011, compared with 15 percent in 2008 (Finnish National Agency for Education 2017). Many of those not selected repeatedly apply for teacher training, year after year (Uusiautti and Määttä 2013). The difficulty of being chosen for this desired degree programme makes the teacher’s profession look elusive but also creates pressure on the selection procedure. In Finland, the PSTE programme aims to meet this selection challenge through a twostage selection process. The first, preliminary stage of the selection is a national multiplechoice exam based on academic articles. The goal of the exam is to assess applicants’ academic study skills, pedagogical thinking and ability to apply knowledge of educational sciences. The most successful in this examination are selected for the next stage. The second stage is an aptitude test, which is based on teacher educators’face-to-face assessments of applicants, most commonly in interviews and group assignments. The aptitude test has been considered one of the core features of the Finnish PSTE programme and essential in assessing communication, interpersonal and leadership skills, attitude, and aspirational commitment to the teaching profession. Universities that offer PSTE programmes use a variety of other complementary selection criteria that take into account earlier learning outcomes, such as performance in the matriculation exam. Nevertheless, teacher educators can be considered gatekeepers for teacher education, deciding who is suitable for the profession (Goodwin and Oyler 2008). Although teacher educators are the core of teacher education by designing, implementing and evaluating teacher education programmes (see Goodwin and Kosnik 2013; Hadar and Brody 2017; Murray 2017), previous studies have failed to address their performance as gatekeepers. Instead, research on student selection has been mainly restricted to comparisons between student teachers’characteristics (e.g. prior academic achievements and personality traits) and performance in teacher training (e.g. Corcoran and O’Flaherty 2018; Heinz 2013) or teaching skills and effectiveness as an in-service teacher (e.g. D’Agostino and Powers 2009; Klassen and Tze 2014). In this article, we focus on teacher educators’performance as gatekeepers in entrance examinations. We examine teacher educators’ability to predict student teachers’success in the PSTE programme from two perspectives –perceived and actual predictability. Understandably, when the student selection process is of high quality, the student selection is compatible with the programme and admitted student teachers will be successful in their studies to become a teacher. We also examine how current –and seemingly immutable –student selection paradigms in Finland concerning gender balance and age structure of student teachers affect teacher educators’assessments. In this study, then, we address the following research questions: ●How do teacher educators perceive their predictability in entrance examinations? ●How do teacher educators actually manage to predict applicants’performance in the PSTE programme? ●How do the age and gender of the applicant affect teacher educators’assessments? By investigating teacher educators’predictability and deviation with regard to selection paradigms, we support their professional development as gatekeepers. The assessments of 2V. MANKKI ET AL. prospective teachers, whether fulfiled in entrance examinations or during the teacher education programme (e.g. Hobson et al. 2010), should be carried out with a high regard for quality since they are only real hurdle to entering the teaching profession. Teacher educators as gatekeepers Research has indicated that the most important factor in learning is the teacher, and there is a strong relationship between students’achievements and the quality of their teachers (e.g. Hamre et al. 2013; Hattie 2009). Nevertheless, research on the significance of those who teach prospective teachers – teacher educators –has been scarcer (Goodwin and Kosnik 2013; Loughran 2011), albeit the research about their quality and preparation is increasing (Brody and Hadar 2018). Still, however, even the definition of teacher educator may be unclear and differ from country to country, due to the various structures of teacher education systems (Murray 2017). In Finland, the definition of teacher educator conforms to the description of Lunenberg, Dengerink, and Korthagen (2014), where teacher educators are contextually defined as higher education faculty (and training school) staffmembers, who teach student teachers with the aim of supporting their professional development. In their review study Lunenberg, Dengerink, and Korthagen (2014)identified six professional roles for the teacher educator to fulfil: 1) teacher of teachers, 2) researcher, 3) coach, 4) curriculum developer, 5) broker and 6) gatekeeper. It is obvious that teacher educators cannot fulfil all roles simultaneously (Kelchtermans, Smith, and Vanderlinde 2018). The first two roles have been ranked as the most important ones for the teacher educator’s profession, especially from the perspective of professional development (Lunenberg, Dengerink, and Korthagen 2014). Teacher educators, as Teachers of Teachers, are expected to offer education to future teachers in the second-order setting of higher education (Murray and Male 2005)and promote teaching and learning exemplifying the best professional practices (Loughran 2011). However, knowledge cannot be limited to understanding through practice when teaching about teaching (Loughran 2011; Murray and Male 2005). Therefore, teacher educators are also expected to fulfiltheroleofResearcher: to achieve professional learning and to generate new knowledge for themselves and others (Hadar and Brody 2017). In Finland, emphasis is placed on teacher educators’sixth role, the Gatekeeper.In gatekeeping, teacher educators make decisions concerning access to the teaching profession (Goodwin and Oyler 2008). Teacher educators in Finnish PSTE programmes fulfilthis significant role every June in entrance examinations, where a large proportion (40–100 percent) of applicants’total scores are based on teacher educators’assessments. The share of points given by teacher educators differs among the Finnish PSTE programmes due to decentralised teacher education and the large autonomy of the programmes (Rasmussen and Bayer 2014). Successful gatekeeping, as in other roles in the teacher educator’s profession, requires lifelong professional development and learning (e.g. Goodwin and Kosnik 2013; Meeus, Cools, and Placklé 2018). Hadar and Brody (2017) divide the teacher educator’s professional learning into ‘self-guided track’and ‘structured track’. However, when considering teacher educators’essential role as gatekeepers in Finnish PSTE programmes, the structured professional learning track, i.e. courses, workshops and seminars, is limited. The PSTE programme provides one or two optional discussion sessions for teacher EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 3 educators dealing with student selection and assessment in entrance examinations. Consequently, the gatekeeping is executed without any in-depth structured preparation. This confirms previous reports of teacher educators’lack of mentoring, support or systematically organised professional learning (Lunenberg, Dengerink, and Korthagen 2014; Murray and Male 2005). Studying one Finnish PSTE programme with qualitative methods, Valli and Johnson (2007) noticed, however, that despite the slight structured preparation, teacher educators are confident about succeeding in the gatekeeper’s role in entrance examinations. Student selection paradigms in Finnish PSTE The student selection debate in Finnish teacher education has been dominated particularly by two paradigms: gender balance and the age of the admitted applicants. The former selection paradigm is more closely connected to PSTE, while the latter applies to Finnish student selection generally. That women are the majority in the education sector is a common feature in OECD countries. At all levels of education combined, on average more than two-thirds of teachers are women across OECD countries. The highest proportions of female teachers are concentrated in the earlier years of schooling. The proportion shrinks at each successive level of education: while women on average represent 97% of the teaching staffin pre-primary education across OECD countries, at the tertiary level the gender profile of teachers is reversed, when the average drops to 43% (OECD 2018). In recent years the proportions of female teachers have further increased in OECD countries as well as in Finland (Finnish National Agency for Education 2017; OECD 2018). The proportions of female teachers at different education levels in OECD countries, EU countries and Finland are presented in Figure 1. Although gender differences are reported to be low in the factors influencing the choice of teaching as a career (Azman 2013), there have been efforts to explain why only few men 97 83 69 59 43 97 86 71 62 44 97 79 74 60 52 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Pre-primary Primary Lower secondary Upper secondary Tertiary OECD-avera g e EU-avera g eFinland Figure 1. Proportion of female teachers at different education levels. 4V. MANKKI ET AL. choose the teaching profession, especially at lower levels of education. Social perceptions of links between gender and the teaching profession are influential in men’s career choices (Bieri Buschor et al. 2014). Especially parents seem to be powerful role models (Flores and Niklasson 2014) and their aspirations indirectly affect their children’s career choices (Croft et al. 2014). From the economic point of view, male teachers, especially at lower levels of education, earn less compared to their tertiary-educated counterparts in other professions (OECD 2018). A growing body of research indicates that men perform worse compared to women in both teacher training and the teaching profession. Male student teachers score lower in mathematics, assessment, planning and student engagement during the training (Stewart, Coombs, and Burston 2016) and show fewer intrinsic (Struyven, Jacobs, and Dochy 2013) or child-centred motives (Heinz 2015) than their female counterparts. In the profession, male teachers, especially at lower levels of education, report lower job satisfaction and often feeling less prepared (Sanatullova-Allison 2010). Also in Finland, male primary school teachers had lower self-efficacy and job satisfaction levels compared to their female colleagues (OECD 2014). In the Finnish PSTE programme, attempts have been made to solve the biased gender balance of the teaching profession over the years using different student selection procedures. Until 1989 gender quotas guaranteed men 40 percent of places in the second stage of selection. The quota was abandoned following the report of the Equality Ombudsman stating that the law on equality prohibits quotas in student selection. When, due to the quota, 40 percent of students admitted to teacher training programmes were men, notwithstanding that only a quarter of applicants were men, it was clear that men could gain admission with lower scores than women. After abandoning the quota, the share of men admitted decreased to just over 20 percent (Uusiautti and Määttä 2013) and it has remained at a similar level to the present day (Finnish National Agency for Education 2017) despite the minor preselective grading solutions favouring male applicants. For example, in 1994 completed military service provided pre-selection points, while supervising leisure activities, proven to favour female applicants, was removed from the grading criteria. In addition to gender balance, there has been a general rejuvenation effort in Finnish higher education. The mean age of Finnish HE students is high (28 years), which is largely due to the slow transition to HE: 27 percent enter HE with a delay of more than two years after leaving school for the first time. Only in Iceland and Sweden is the mean age of students and proportion of delayed enterers higher (Eurostudent 2018). This led the Finnish Government to state in its action plan that ‘young people’s transition to further education will be facilitated’(Prime Minister’sOffice 2017, 39). Rejuvenation aims led to creating a quota for applicants that have not accepted a degree programme place in HE before 2016. Between 2017 and 2020, Finnish universities have also committed themselves to abolishing entrance examinations and increasing the weight of earlier learning outcomes in selection, such as performance in the matriculation exam. The aim of these procedures is especially to improve the position of freshly matriculated upper secondary students, of which only 25 percent were admitted to HE in 2017, despite 73 percent of them applying (OSF 2018). In PSTE, rejuvenation efforts began over a decade ago, when the national selection co-operation network launched a unified national entrance examination in the field of education. The multiple-choice exam replaced the earlier preliminary system, which was EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 5 considered to discriminate against newly matriculated applicants. In the earlier system, applicants for the second stage of selection were chosen based on points accumulated from the matriculation examination, but also from working as a school assistant or as an unqualified teacher or from studying educational science at open universities. Although the purpose of the national preliminary entrance exam was to improve the chances of newly matriculated applicants, the reform has not proved to be successful. On the contrary, the proportion of new upper secondary school graduates admitted to PSTE programmes has decreased from 20 percent to 15 percent in a decade (Finnish National Agency for Education 2017). Methodology The study encompassed two datasets. Data on teacher educators’perceived predictability consisted of online survey. Teacher educators’actual predictability and the effect of the selection paradigms were studied using student register data. All data analyses were executed using SPSS 24. Teacher educators’perceived predictability Participants Seven out of the nine PSTE programmes in Finland participated in the study. In June 2017 the total number of entrance examination assessors in those PSTE programmes was 199, of which 92 (46.2 percent) teacher educators participated in the study. Augmenting the number of participants by carrying out the study in multiple universities enabled statistical analysis to examine differences in perceived predictability between teacher educators. Data collection The study was conducted as a survey. A two-round pilot survey with ten-member and five-member groups of educational specialists with selection experience preceded the actual study. In the questionnaire teacher educators used a five-point Likert-scale to describe their ability to predict applicants’performance in the teacher education programme (1 very weakly –5 very well). To examine differences among the groups, information on background factors, such as gender, year of birth, university, position and experience as a teacher educator and experience as an entrance examination assessor, was requested. Prior to analysis, the continuous numerical variables (i.e. age and experience variables) were recoded into four groups. Data analysis Descriptive statistics are used to describe the basic features of the data. The differences in perceived predictability were analysed with non-parametric tests. A Mann-Whitney Utest was carried out to analyse the differences in perceived predictability between male and female teacher educators. A Kruskal–Wallis test was performed to examine differences in perceived predictability between groups based on teacher educators’age, university, position or experience. 6V. MANKKI ET AL. Teacher educators’actual predictability and selection paradigms Participants The data consisted of all student teachers admitted into the PSTE programme in one of the universities in 2008–2014 (n = 479). The results of this study can be applied to other PSTE programmes as well since teacher educators’preparation for entrance examinations is arranged fairly convergently across PSTE programmes, i.e. one or two optional discussion sessions for teacher educators dealing with student selection. In addition, the generalisability of the study is increased by the fact that the entrance examinations in a particular PSTE programme consisted of the most common aptitude test methods in the Finnish PSTE programme, i.e. interview and group assignment. Data collection The data was collected from the student register. The data contained information on the student teachers’entrance examination score given by teacher educators, average study grade, grade of the master’s thesis, completed credits, semesters as an active student and information on graduation. Teaching skills are not graded in the teaching practice component of the Finnish PSTE programme. Prior to analysis, the entrance examination scores, consisting of scores from the interview and group assignment, were scaled to 50 points, which was the most commonly used maximum score in the period under consideration. In addition, the age of the applicant was recoded into four groups. Data analysis The data was analysed using regression analysis. Linear regression analysis was carried out to analyse teacher educators’ability to predict applicants’average study grade and study pace. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed to examine teacher educators’ability to predict the grade of applicants’ master’s thesis. Binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate teacher educators’ability to predict applicants’graduation within the normative duration. The effect of student selection paradigms was analysed with parametric tests. An independent-samples t-test was carried out to analyse the differences in entrance examination score between male and female applicants. A one-way ANOVA was performed to examine score differences between applicants’age groups. Findings Teacher educators’perceived predictability Teacher educators’perceived ability to predict applicants’performance in the PSTE programme was good. Eighty percent of teacher educators considered that they can predict an applicant’s performance in teacher education quite or very well. Only one participant felt able to predict applicants’performance quite weakly. None of the teacher educators considered themselves able to predict applicants’performance very weakly. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION 7 The mean of perceived predictability on a scale of 1–5 was 3.92 (SD = .58). The teacher educators’perceived predictability is shown in Figure 2. Male teacher educators (n = 35) felt themselves more able to predict the applicants’ performance in the PSTE programme than female teacher educators (n = 57) (p< .05). As many as 94 percent (M= 4.09, SD = .56) of men believed that they can predict applicants’performance in the programme quite or very well, while only 72 percent (M = 3.82, SD = .60) of women found themselves able to predict applicants’performance quite or very well. Other background factors did not produce statistically significant differences between groups (p> .05). The effect of the student selection paradigms The mean of the admitted applicants’scaled entrance examination scores was 43.72 (SD = 4.39) and the range was between 30 and 50. Of the admitted applicants, 101 (21.1 per cent) were men and 378 (78.9 per cent) were women. The entrance examination scores of admitted men (M= 45.90, SD = 3.67) were statistically significantly higher (F=5.05, p<.001) than those of admitted women (M= 43.13, SD = 4.38). When reviewing admitted applicants who have gained maximum points, favouring men is particularly evident. Up to 26.7 percent of admitted men achieved the maximum score, compared with only 10 percent of admitted women. The mean age of admitted applicants was 23.26 (SD = 5.19) years and the range was between 18–45 years. The entrance examination scores differed statistically significantly between age groups (F= 6.26, p<.001). The two youngest groups of admitted applicants, 18–19-year-olds (p< .05), and 20–21-year-olds (p< .001), achieved lower scores in the entrance examination than the 22–29-year-olds. The group of at least 30-year-olds did not differ statistically significantly from other groups (p>.05).Theeffect of applicants’age and gender on the examination score is shown in Figure 3. Teacher educators’actual predictability Teacher educators’actual ability to predict applicants’performance in the PSTE programme was analysed by four factors, which indicate performance in studies. Teacher educators’assessments (entrance examination scores) were compared to student teachers’1) average study grade, 2) grade of their master’s thesis, 3) study pace and 4) graduation within normative duration. Applicants who were admitted but did not accept the degree place in the programme (n = 15) were removed from following analyses. 2126711 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% M = 3.92 I can predict applicants' performance in the PSTE program q uite weakl y neither p oorl y or well q uite well ver y well Figure 2. Teacher educators’perceptions of their predictability in the entrance exam. 8V. MANKKI ET AL.