Assessing the Practicum in teacher education – Do we want candidates and mentors to agree?

One of the most important components of teacher education is the practical part, the Practicum, and assessment of the candidates’ performance plays a major part in forming the future generation of teachers. Little is known about the extent of agreement between the two main actors in the Practicum, the candidates and the school-based teacher educators. The aim of this paper is to add information about a rather blurred area of assessment in teacher education. The findings indicate there is a considerably extent of disagreement about assessment in the Practicum between the mentors and the candidates. It is suggested that instead of seeing the disagreements merely as obstacles to valid assessment, they can be exploited to initiate professional learning for the candidates.