Early Childhood Teacher Candidates' Perception of Their Support and Readiness for a Teacher Performance Assessment.
Comprehensive early childhood teacher preparation programs offer courses and curricula that are aligned with current research on best practices and related to the knowledge and skills that early childhood teacher candidates are expected to demonstrate on certification exams and teacher performance assessments. To support the alignment of early childhood coursework in a teacher preparation program with a teacher performance assessment (edTPA) the purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which teacher candidates felt their early childhood coursework prepared them for the edTPA. The findings from this study suggest that early childhood teachers' perception of their readiness for a teacher performance assessment may indicate the extent to which their coursework prepared them to meet the requirements of the edTPA. Implications from this study suggests that early childhood teacher preparation programs should continuously examine how faculty are introducing and supporting professional teaching standards, assessment for learning and evaluation of learning throughout course work and student teaching experiences.