The emotional competences of the students of the Teacher’s Degrees in Early Childhood and Primary Education: an essential dimension in initial teacher training

Abstract

The changes produced during the last decades in the social and educational context, make it essential for teachers to possess an adequate level of emotional competencies, so that they can respond to the uncertainties and educational demands that are posed to them in their profession. For this reason, the present work has tried to know the level of self-perceived emotional competence by 227 first-year students of the Teacher’s Degrees in Early Childhood Education and Primary Education at the University of Malaga. For this, a quantitative study based on an ex post facto descriptive and correlational design has been carried out, the Adult Emotional Development Questionnaire (CDE-A), designed by Pérez-Escoda et al., (2010) has been used. This study reveals, on the one hand, that the participants have an underdeveloped emotional awareness, that is, they have little ability to identify their emotions and those of others, as well as to capture the emotional climate. On the other hand, the students show an adequate perception regarding dimensions related to the management of emotions, the development of good self-esteem and a positive attitude, estab-lishing and maintaining good relationships with the social environment and following responsible behaviors towards the lifetime. The data also show that students of the Degree in Early Childhood Education have a lower development of emotional competencies than the students of the Degree in Primary Education. For this reason, it would be necessary to study and assess in depth the convenience of contemplating this competence dimension in the training plans of future teachers, so that they learn to better manage their emotions, and to work on the rational and emotional dimension of Their students, learn how to promote educational interactions with their students to adjust teaching strategies that cause equality, equity and social justice.