Assessing final-year preservice teachers' preparedness for teaching art education in NSW primary schools

The teaching of art education in primary schools occurs in less than ideal conditions and may be avoided by generalist primary teachers. Eighty-seven final-year preservice teachers were surveyed on their preparedness for teaching primary art education at the conclusion of their Bachelor of Education program. The 39 survey items were derived from the New South Wales' Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus across four stage levels (i.e., early stage 1, stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3), and data were subjected to exploratory factory analysis, which indicated acceptable Cronbach alpha scores (i.e., .90, .89, .89, .90, respectively). Percentages and mean scale scores suggested that these final-year preservice teachers believed they were generally prepared to teach art education in primary schools as a result of a preservice teacher education visual arts unit. Nevertheless, more than 10% of preservice teachers indicated they could not agree or strongly agree that they could provide 20 of the 39 teaching practices advocated by the syllabus and 20% indicated this for 7 of the 39 teaching practices. Posttest surveys linked to a state syllabus may assist in assessing preservice teachers' preparedness for teaching art education and may provide valuable information for further development of tertiary education coursework.