Researchers at Nagaland University have developed a 50-item achievement test to assess the understanding of inclusive education among trainee teachers, in an effort to identify gaps in teacher preparation and improve classroom practices for children with diverse learning needs.
According to a statement issued on Monday, the assessment tool is designed to evaluate prospective teachers’ knowledge of the concepts, practices and policies associated with inclusive education. It is expected to help teacher education institutions identify areas where trainee teachers need further guidance and support.
The initiative assumes significance in the context of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which emphasises the need to prepare teachers to create inclusive classrooms where children, irrespective of their abilities and learning requirements, can study together.
The researchers pointed out that existing assessment methods in teacher education largely focus on teachers’ attitudes and confidence in managing classrooms rather than measuring their actual knowledge of inclusive education.
“Few actually measure what future teachers know about education — its concepts, practices and policies. The new test aims to fill that gap. It can help teacher education institutions spot areas where trainee teachers struggle,” the statement said.
The research was conducted by Aseto Iralu Meyase, a research scholar, and Gyanendra Nath Tiwari of the Department of Teacher Education at Nagaland University. Their findings have been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, an open-access journal covering education, social sciences, economics and management.
The test was developed on the basis of Nagaland University’s B.Ed. Course-10, titled ‘Creating an Inclusive School’. It covers five major areas and contains questions designed to assess different levels of cognitive ability, including recalling information, applying knowledge, analysing situations and evaluating possible solutions.
Explaining the development process, Tiwari said the research team initially prepared 60 questions. These were reviewed before the test was administered to 42 M.Ed. students at the university’s Kohima Campus.
The researchers then examined the difficulty level of individual questions, their ability to distinguish between students with stronger and weaker performance, and the overall reliability and consistency of the assessment.
Following the analysis, 10 questions that did not meet the required standards were removed, leaving a final set of 50 questions.
Meyase said the internal consistency of the test, measured through Cronbach’s alpha, improved from 0.641 to 0.727 after the removal of the 10 questions, indicating an improvement in its reliability.
However, the researchers cautioned that further testing involving larger and more diverse groups of trainee teachers would be necessary to establish the stability and reliability of the assessment tool across different educational settings.
The findings also showed that questions requiring students to apply and analyse knowledge performed better than those primarily testing their ability to recall information. According to the researchers, this indicates that evaluating how prospective teachers apply their knowledge could offer a more meaningful picture of their preparedness to handle inclusive classrooms.
Nagaland University Vice-Chancellor Jagadish K Patnaik said the research addressed an important gap in teacher preparation and could help strengthen B.Ed. programmes, particularly in Nagaland and other parts of the Northeast.
He encouraged researchers to focus on developing studies and tools with practical applications, expressing hope that the findings would contribute to improving teacher education, strengthening inclusive classroom practices and advancing the objectives of NEP 2020.
The researchers believe that the assessment tool could provide teacher education institutions with a structured method to evaluate the subject knowledge of future teachers and identify areas requiring improvement before they enter classrooms.
