Abstract:

The suitability of candidates for admission to teacher-education programs is the topic of this study. It introduces MESILA, an innovative screening system that considers the candidates' personality characteristics in addition to their cognitive abilities. A multi-national review of selection batteries revealed that although suitable personality characteristics are vital for success, the entrance criteria for most teacher-education programs are based solely on cognitive measures such as matriculation scores, GPA, or psychometric entrance exams.

The innovative MESILA screening program was developed in response to growing recognition of the need for a screening system that addresses the personal and professional suitability of candidates for teacher-education studies. MESILA allows admissions officers to look at the candidate's personality, tendencies, behaviors, values, motivations, expectations, and interpersonal abilities.

MESILA is a full day assessment center, created specifically to measure suitability to the world of the teacher and school life. It includes interactive group dynamic exercises and simulations, assessed in real time by the evaluation team, a semi-structured interpersonal interview, peer ratings, personality measures, a situational judgement test, and a biographical questionnaire.

The report generated for each candidate includes sub-grades in seven indices – identification with the teaching role, commitment to organization and system, teaching and classroom planning, interpersonal skills in teaching, integration and teamwork, striving for professional development, and holistic evaluation of assessors. Combined, these form a general suitability score for teaching. All scores are saved in a database for follow-up and research.

The effectiveness of the MESILA assessment center in predicting success as a teacher-educator has been examined as well as the incremental validity beyond cognitive screening tools (e.g., high-school matriculation and / or psychometric scores). Criteria studied included college course grades, success in pre-service education, dropout rate, success in teaching-internship, and entry into teaching.

The findings of these studies show that MESILA succeeds in predicting academic success, pre-service education success, and lack of dropout from teacher education studies, with correlations ranging from r = 0.29 to r = 0.47. In addition, a strong positive relationship was found between the MESILA assessment center scores and evaluations during teaching-internship as well as measures of entry into the teaching force. In comparison, no relationship was found between the classical cognitive tools (e.g., matriculation and or psychometric scores) and success in actual teaching in pre-service teacher-education or with dropout data.

These research findings are consistent with the literature regarding the need to examine suitability for teaching based on both personality characteristics and cognitive screening data, and highlight the contribution of personality screening to predicting success in teaching studies. Issues related to the use of a screening system for teacher-education candidates are discussed, such as the appropriate stage of assessing teacher suitability, determining the characteristics of the desired teacher and differential profiles of teacher characteristics.

Keywords:

Teacher-education studies, admission tests, MESILA, Assessment, teacher effectiveness, teacher characteristics.