The Pedagogical Content Knowledge of the School of Education Pre-Service Teachers in Test Construction

Abstract

Pre-service teachers, as part of their training, are called to demonstrate skills in selecting, developing, applying, using, communicating, and evaluating their future students’ assessment information and assessment practices. The study sought to determine the pedagogical content knowledge of pre-service teachers in test construction. The study employed a descriptive research design and was conducted in the School of Education at Xavier University. The sampling method used is simple random sampling and made use of Cochran’s formula of estimation for getting the sample size. The results showed that the pre-service teachers have “Fair” pedagogical knowledge in the essentials of test construction and need to improve in writing instructional objectives and constructing the table of specifications. However, they have “Good” pedagogical knowledge in the majority of the objective-type tests, except in the construction of completion and multiple-choice test items. The results also showed that there is no significant difference between the respondents’ pedagogical content knowledge in the preliminaries or the essentials of test construction when grouped according to their undergraduate program. Also, there is no significant difference with the respondents’ pedagogical content knowledge in the construction of objective-type tests when grouped according to their Undergraduate Program.