Pioneering quantitative assessment of questioning competency in elementary pre-service teachers using Likert-scale questions

In pre-service teacher (PST) education, developing effective instructional practices like questioning is a crucial learning objective. Assessing PSTs' questioning competencies is essential, yet traditional qualitative methods (e.g., discourse analysis) limit large-scale analysis within PST preparation programs. Previously, we addressed this challenge by designing and validating instruments, including a video-coding scheme and free-response questions, to assess novice teachers' competencies in asking effective guiding questions to address student difficulties. We established a link between their questioning practices and performance on free-response questions. Building upon these efforts, this study aims to further enhance assessment efficiency by transforming pre-validated free-response questions into Likert-scale questions. In this approach, respondents rate provided options that represent various levels of questioning competencies, rather than providing their answers. Over two semesters, we administered Likert-scale questions to more than 100 PSTs each term to evaluate the feasibility and validity of this method. We identified five categories of options for Likert-scale questions and developed empirical equations to derive Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Questioning (PCK-Q) from the collected ratings. The findings support the use of Likert-scale questions as a promising tool for large-scale assessment of PCK-Q in PST education. We also discussed the application of Likert-scale questions in PST preparation.