Teachers' competency tests in Ontario: A survey of teachers' opinions.

Abstract

The Government of Ontario has introduced a teacher competency program in the province. Under the program, all new teachers will now have to pass a standard, province-wide qualifying test before they can start teaching in schools. In Ontario, teacher competency testing is a relatively new concept. However, such tests are already in practice in almost all states in the USA. The initial reaction of Ontario teachers' associations and their leaders was quite critical of the competency testing. However, the statements opposing competency testing were made by the associations and their leaders; to the knowledge of the researcher, no study or research available showing the opinions of Ontario teachers themselves. This study aims to ascertain the opinions of the teachers of Eastern Ontario about the teacher competency testing program. After comparing various popular models of educational program evaluation, the CIPP model was selected for this study. CIPP is an acronym for the four basic components of evaluations this model recommends, namely: context evaluation, input evaluation, process evaluation and product evaluation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)