Teacher Training: The Link Between Academic Performance and Success in Professional Practice

Abstract

This research approaches initial teacher training from the perspective of structure and curriculum. During initial teacher training, any disconnection between theoretical content and the practical application of theory should be avoided. Therefore, this article proposes to study the quality of teacher training by determining the predictive capacity of academic performance with respect to success in the professional practices of teachers in training. An index of predictive validity of academic performance and the application of Bayes' theorem are used to estimate this complex problem. The target group of this study is the science pedagogy careers belonging to the 2006 to 2013 cohorts, with a size of 842 students from a Chilean state university. The results indicate that the predictive validity of academic performance does not reach 50%, which shows the disconnection between success in professional practice and previous training. These results raise the need to analyze the relevance of theoretical content in professional teaching practice. Furthermore, it emphasizes the need to have adequate quality assurance processes for initial teacher training for the entire higher education system.