Validating the Conceptions of Assessment-III Scale in Canadian Preservice Teachers

The purpose of this study was to test the validity of the Teachers' Conceptions of Assessment Scale III-Abridged Version (CoA-IIIA; Brown, 2006), a measure created, validated, and applied outside of North America, in a sample of Canadian preservice teachers (n = 436). This work is important because although we have long known that teachers' beliefs influence the way they teach, research also suggests that teachers' beliefs related to assessment influence the way they assess students. Confirmatory factor analysis of the Canadian data led to a solution slightly different than the New Zealand factor structure, with nine latent first-order variables, each with two or three measured indicators. Although the preservice teachers endorsed the purposes of assessment similarly to several other countries, the factor measuring assessment as "inaccurate" was endorsed more strongly than in previous research. Our discussion highlights the differences and similarities between the current results and previous studies with the CoA-IIIA.