Mentoring the supervising teachers for effective development of pre-service teachers' assessment literacy

The strong partnership between initial teacher education (ITE) providers and schools ensures that pre-service teachers (PSTs) can further develop practical skills during their practicum. One of the most important skills to acquire for pre-service teachers (PSTs) is assessment literacy; to develop the capacity to ‘make highly contextualised, fair, consistent and trustworthy assessment decisions to inform learning and teaching to support both students and teachers’ professional learning effectively’ (Alonzo, 2016, p. 58). While education courses offered by ITEs provide students with an avenue to acquire knowledge and skills, the practicum provides critical opportunities for them to develop further and refine this knowledge and these skills (Oo et al., 2022). Without actual classroom application, PSTs would not understand the realities of assessing and working with students. However, studies show that assessment practice in real classrooms during PSTs’ practicum is problematic due to hindering factors (Jiang, 2015), including: the support of mentors (Oo et al., 2021); school context (Xu & Harfitt, 2018); cultural factors (Jiang, 2015); and the PSTs’ knowledge, skills and dispositions (Hill & Eyers, 2016).