The attitudes of initial teacher education students towards teacher socioemotional competence

Abstract

A significant acceptance and research of teacher socioemotional competence occurred along with the development of the constructivist approach in education. Socioemotional competence is considered an important part of teacher competences or pedagogical competences which should be acquired and learned during studies. The main research objective was to examine the attitudes of initial teacher education students (future teachers) related to the desirable and necessary teacher socioemotional competences, including self-assessment of students' socioemotional competences. The study involved a total of 121 graduate students attending teacher education study programs in the field of social sciences and humanities. The results of the research indicate that students are generally familiar with characteristics of socioemotional competence and consider them important. As expected, the students show having somewhat less confidence in their own teacher competences.