Abstract:

The PISA-tests brought an immense attention to school results. Some countries have done changes in their educational systems following discouraging results. As a response to the PISA-tests Norway introduced a new curriculum in 2006 in primary and secondary schools. The Teacher Education followed with reforms that were intended to give the students fewer subjects, but better and more profound subject content knowledge in those subjects also for students wanting to become primary and lower secondary school teachers.

Since tests and exams are seen as more and more important this study will explore assessments and exams in the newly started master’s degree in teacher’s education for primary and lower secondary school, and investigates how and what the students are tested in. I have looked at the formal assessment for students in Physical Education (PE) in teacher education. The assessments investigated were applied in 2019, in a course of 30 ECTS studied during the students’ first and second year in teacher education. I have looked at obligatory coursework and final exams focusing on the tasks in the final exams.

To analyse the assessments, I have looked at how the assessments were designed, how the challenges are established, what parts of the curriculum they tested, and how didactics were integrated in the exam. I have looked for ”Subject content knowledge”, ”Pedagogical content knowledge” and ”Curricular knowledge”, based on Shulman’s work (Shulman 1987) and his research on what knowledge is necessary for a good teacher.

The result of the analysis shows a broad fan of different ways of measuring teacher competence. The assessments are diverse in their challenges as the assessments ask for trivial specific facts to overarching principles, and request that the students master the practical task of teaching.

Keywords:

Assessments, teacher education, teacher knowledge, Subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, curricular knowledge.