Assuring the quality of higher education becomes a world-wide concern in the global climate of accountability and continual improvement. "Outcomes-based Approach" (OBA), which focuses on what students should know, understand and be able to do as a result of a period of learning, is therefore introduced and regarded as an effective approach to enhance the quality of higher education. Under the context of teacher education, student teachers demonstrate a fulfillment of learning outcomes when they are able to internalise what they have learnt in individual courses and apply such knowledge and skills successfully in teaching practice (TP).

       Funded by UGC's Teaching Development Grants, the research project "Developing an Outcomes-based Approach (OBA) for Learning and Teaching in Teacher Education" ("the Project") was implemented with an aim of exploring the feasibility of implementing OBA in the context of teacher education by the Faculty of Education, CUHK.

        The research team had developed both new and revised sets of OBA assessment tools to evaluate the TP performance of student teachers majoring in Chinese, English and Physical Education (PE). When conducting the pilot study, only full-time student teachers of the three programmes, namely Subject Curriculum and Teaching Chinese under the Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme (PGDE SCT CHI), Bachelor of Education (Language Education) Programme (LED Programme) and Bachelor of Education (Physical Education and Sports Science) Programme, were invited to participate. Both new and revised assessment tools provide a detailed analysis on student teachers' teaching performance according to different domains and levels, so that they could gain a better understanding on their own strengths and weaknesses in teaching.

       Other than the use of OBA assessment tools, the research team also collected opinions from local experienced educators on graduates' teaching performance and their expectations of newly-qualified teachers. The collected comments served as useful references for further refining of both the new assessment tools and the learning outcomes of respective subjects, and providing the Faculty with more accurate and objective assessment.