Recommended tests for assessing teaching skills
There are lots of tests that could be used to assess teaching skills, some of them include:
Emotional intelligence
Verbal reasoning
Time management
Interpersonal skills
Software skills
All of these skills are required to work within education and should be assessed prior to hiring.
Emotional intelligence test
The emotional intelligence test assesses an individual's understanding of emotions and how others are affected by them. It focuses on the perception, management and understanding of different emotions.
It is made up of multiple choice questions, including questions such as showing a picture and having the candidate identify the emotion represented in the picture. It could be a person demonstrating the emotion or a dark picture to symbolize a negative emotion.
Emotional intelligence is crucial for teachers as they must be able to identify their students' emotions and understand the best way to act on them. This is also beneficial for working within a team or with other adults. Achieving highly on the emotional intelligence test can demonstrate a high understanding and empathy for others.
Verbal reasoning test
The verbal reasoning test consists of questions that require a small text passage to be read and then questions to be answered on this topic. The comprehension-style questions offer multiple answers and require no previous knowledge of the topic.
This test is focusing on the logical choices made based solely on the information gained within the passage and to see if the candidates have a full understanding of what they have read. To complete this test well candidates must have strong reading and comprehension abilities.
Verbal reasoning is an important skill for teachers as a large part of the role is reading emails, plans and other important documents which may be written by other individuals. Understanding what is written and how best to respond and act is important within the field of education.
Time management test
The time management test is useful in all professions, especially teaching. When working in a school each lesson has a specific amount of time allocated to it, so a teacher must have excellent time management skills to ensure they are following their timetable properly.
The test is created with multiple-choice questions and is focused around scenarios where time management may be an issue. The candidate must select the best answer which demonstrates understanding and management of time to ensure each task is complete.
By using scenarios it gives an opportunity to see the decisions candidates would make instead of them stating that they have strong time management on their CV.
Interpersonal skills test
The interpersonal skills test is used to assess the way a candidate communicates and interacts with other people. This test focuses on social skills and logical decisions on how to address a social situation, involving both positive and negative interactions.
The test uses scenarios as questions for the candidate to choose one of the possible answers to determine how they would respond to the situation.
Interpersonal skills are important when teaching as most of the day consists of interacting with different people including students, parents, family members and staff. It is important to understand how to handle different situations in a professional and efficient manner.
Software skills tests
Software skills tests include a wide range of different tests including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word and Google Cloud. These are just a few of the software programs which should be tested before taking a job as a teacher. In the modern world, using technology and specific software is an essential part of being a teacher.
Teachers must not only be able to understand and use different software programs, but they also have to be able to teach them. Within the primary curriculum, teachers must be able to teach about spreadsheets (Microsoft Excel), presentation skills (PowerPoint) and writing skills on a keyboard (Microsoft Word).
Using any of the software skills tests is efficient during the hiring process for a teacher to have a thorough understanding of their technical abilities.