Pre-service teachers’ experiences with a digital examination design: The inter-relation between continuity and change in an institutional context

Abstract

This article reports a study of a full-scale digital examination in a five-year master program of teacher education in Norway. The innovative design involves observing a video case based on an authentic classroom situation and analysing the case in light of educational theory and subject content knowledge. All parts of this format are to be solved on a computer with Internet access. The study is centred on the pre-service teachers’ experiences of this open-ended and unfamiliar testing format. More specifically, the intention has been to analyse (a) what kinds of preparations they engaged in; (b) how they solved tasks during the examination; (c) their reflections on this mode of examination. Interviews with 11 informants have been conducted, and the content is summarized in three selected cases, and finally across the interview sample. The results indicate that innovations like this are interpreted and approached against the background of pre-service teachers’ expectations, and the open format engaged the pre-service teachers to draw upon a wide range of resources both when preparing and solving the tasks. It is, however, timely to question whether the introduction of the examination format, based on faculty interest and intentions, will have the intended impact on evaluation procedures in an established learning culture.