Teacher Education Faculty and the edTPA: A phenomenological perspective

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to examine the experiences of university faculty expected to implement a teacher performance assessment called edTPA within a teacher preparation program. This study synthesized the experiences university faculty members have when preparing and implementing the edTPA. A deep examination of 12 university faculty members who teach in teacher preparation programs in a Midwestern state where the edTPA is required for licensure offer their experience through a questionnaire, an individual interview, and a focus group interview. The data were collected, organized, and analyzed by employing transcendental phenomenological systematic data analysis procedures positioned to establish validity of the study and to find commonalities and themes in the data. Five themes were identified. First, the study found that making sense of the edTPA is an evolving process and second, that academic language is a component of the assessment that teacher educators continue to struggle with. Third, teacher educators prepare for the edTPA through local and official scoring. Fourth, teacher educators implement the edTPA by embedding it into the coursework. Fifth, the participants perceive the edTPA as good teaching. The pedagogical content knowledge theory guides this study, as it relates to faculty who teach pre-service teachers in a teacher preparation progra