JOB ANALYSIS FOR TEACHER COMPETENCE TESTING - IDENTIFICATION OF BASICSKILLS IMPORTANT FOR ALL ENTRY-LEVEL TEACHERS

The purpose of this study was to conduct a job analysis of the basic s kills judged to be important for all entry-level teachers regardless o f subject area taught or grade level. Committees of content experts de fined a domain consisting of 134 basic skill statements clustered with in six basic skill dimensions: Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Listenin g, Speaking, and Interactive Communication Skills. A national survey o f 6,120 practicing teachers was then conducted to verify the judgments of the committees and to identify a core of basic skills judged to be important by relevant subgroups of teachers (race/ethnicity, sex, tea ching experience, subject area, school setting, school level, and geog raphic region). The results of the survey verified the importance of t he basic skills domain. The subgroup analysis indicated that 113 state ments (84% of the domain) were judged to be important by all subgroups of teachers.