ProEthica: Advancing Teacher Candidate Ethics Assessment from Theory to Practice in Christian Contexts

In recent decades, accreditation standards have required teacher education programs to establish and implement dispositions that define and assess affective beliefs and values integrated within the teacher preparation process. The 2015 publication of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) Model Code of Ethics for Educators sought to unify the application and assessment of dispositions relating to integrity and social responsibility through a national referendum. In response, Educational Testing Service (ETS) developed an online program, ProEthica, to challenge individual teacher candidates and school leaders to explore potential-risk scenarios in an effort to produce self-reflection regarding legal ramifications when making schoolbased ethical decisions. ProEthica is currently being embraced as a licensure component by some state departments of education. Researchers conducted a pilot program, integrating ProEthica as a component in a graduate and an undergraduate foundations class in the spring of 2017, to assess the value of using ProEthica as a practical extenuation of its dispositions. Analysis of the data found ProEthica principles and indicators for leadership and for pre-service candidates—though written from secular ethical and moral perspectives—to be aligned with the Christian university’s worldview and dispositional values and beliefs. The use of ProEthica offers the Christian university an evaluation tool that does not compromise but rather augments its biblical identity, while enabling it to meet state and national teacher and leadership training mandates.