An Investigation of the Factors Affecting the Assessment Literacy of Teacher Candidates: A Structural Equation Modeling

The aim of the study is to investigate the causal relationships between teacher candidates' assessment literacy and their conceptions of assessment, assessment self-efficacies and assessment course success. A survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the research. In the analysis of the data collected from 203 third and fourth grade prospective teachers who studying at Middle School Mathematics, Turkish, and Computer and Instructional Technology Teaching Programs via four different surveys, the proposed model was tested with the structural equation model. As a result of analyzing the obtained data, a statistically significant positive relationship between participants' assessment literacies and their course success was found. As well, a statistically significant positive relationship between participants’ assessment conceptions and their course success was found. On the other hand, it was found that there was not a significant relationship between assessment self-efficacies and assessment literacies of the participants. Thus it shows that there is a discrepancy between what the participants feel to do about assessment and what they can do in practice because the self-efficacies of participants did not predict their assessment literacies