Judging teacher candidates' readiness to teach

•The study focuses on judgment of teacher candidates' readiness to teach.•Two overarching concerns emerge: personal attributes and professional practices.•Within these, six key dimensions for judging readiness to teach are apparent.•Observation, discussion, documentation and others' opinions inform decisions.•There is variation between judges, but an overall pattern can be seen.

Making judgments about complex performances, such as teaching, is a sophisticated process. High stakes judgments, such as determining whether a prospective teacher is capable of teaching in ways that impact significantly on student outcomes, involve both conscious and unconscious processes. In this study, Social Judgment Theory was used to better understand judgments of ‘readiness to teach’. To tap into the understandings and evidences used by teachers and faculty in making their decisions about prospective teachers, a task was developed that explored the question: What aspects of a teacher candidate's practice are considered when judgments of his/her ‘readiness to teach’ are made?

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