Assessment of the Early Childhood Practicum: What Can we Learn from Tertiary Supervisors' Silences?

Abstract

This article presents results from a study that focuses on tertiary supervisors' perspectives on practicum assessment. The discussion of results in this paper is restricted to one of the key themes evident in the data -silence. The different ways of understanding silence according to the literature provides the theoretical framework for an exploration of tertiary supervisors' moments of silence during the assessment process. Examples from focus groups, individual interviews and journals are used to illustrate how two different forms of silence expressed themselves in the data. The postructuralist concepts of discourse, subjectivity and power are used to explore what the silences might mean and what we can learn from them.