When Assessment Guides: an Exploratory Study Among Trainees in the 30, 36 and 60 CFU Teacher Qualification Pathways

Abstract

The article examines the value that assessment holds for participants enrolled in the 30, 36, and 60 ECTS qualifying pathways for the initial training of secondary school teachers at Link Campus University. Using an exploratory mixed-methods design involving 207 participants, the study seeks to understand how assessment is perceived within these pathways. The findings reveal an overall positive attitude toward assessment, which is recognised as necessary and potentially formative. At the same time, however, a gap emerges between the principle of assessment and the practices experienced, which are often perceived as insufficiently transparent or misaligned with the complexity of teachers’ work. The study invites a rethinking of assessment in qualifying pathways as an inhabitable educational practice, capable of supporting professional development without reducing teaching to merely procedural or control-oriented logics.