Development and Validation of a Performance Assessment Scheme for ELT Graduates of Farhangian University based on Competency Model

Performance assessment is exceedingly considered a key concept in teacher education programs worldwide. Accordingly, in Iran, a national assessment system was proposed by Farhangian University to assess the professional competencies of its ELT graduates; the concerns regarding the validity and authenticity of traditional measures of teachers’ competency have motivated us to devise a localized performance assessment test. Therefore, the present study aimed to develop a performance assessment scheme to be used as a benchmark for assessing the professional competencies of ELT graduates of this university. To this end, three assessment tasks and rating scales were developed, piloted, and administered. Next, Haertel’s participatory approach was used to set passing standards for the assessment tasks as well as the whole assessment scheme. Analysis of data revealed that inter-rater reliability measure of 0.85 and intra-rater consistency measure of 89% was obtained. The validity of the assessment scheme was also confirmed by experts’ judgment majorly on correspondence between target domain and test domain skills. Based on the results, the proposed assessment scheme is rendered more efficient and reliable in comparison to traditional assessment tests in the following dimensions: a) higher degrees of reliability and validity of the assessment scheme aimed at improvement of licensure and program development, b) stronger evidence for inter/intra rater reliability and consistency of scoring, and c) an optimized and systematic procedure for standard setting and standard passing based on consensus of experts’ judgment. It is believed that the further development of the proposed assessment scheme enjoys the potentiality to be used as a large-scale teacher assessment model for Farhangian University.