Does Personality Predict Student Teachers’ Longitudinal Competence Development? Predicting Latent Change Within the KOSTA Project.

Author(s):

Christoph Schneider(presenting / submitting)Rainer Bodensohn(presenting)Frank Foerster

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 11 C, Perspectives on Competence Development in Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

17:15-18:45

Room:

B226 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Tony Brown

Contribution

In teacher education research, the dominating professionalization paradigm presumes that in principle, professional teacher behaviour can be learned in adequate teacher education programmes (see Cochran-Smith and Fries, 2001). In contrast, the personality paradigm, assuming that stable personality characteristics widely determine academic and professional success (see Foerster, 2008) has been less popular in teacher education research in recent years. In an attempt to bridge the gap between these two seemingly opposed paradigms, specifically in this paper, we investigate whether, and if so, to what extent, students’ (positive) longitudinal development in domains of practical pedagogical competences can be predicted by students’ trait characteristics, such as the Big Five personality traits, self efficacy and personal competence.

In the KOSTA project, student teachers’ competences in the domains of “teaching”, “education”, “assessment” and “innovation” were evaluated twice in the course of the university-based phase of initial teacher education following two compulsory field experiences by means of students’ self-reports. The theoretical framework for monitoring specifically these four competence domains has been provided by a collection of standards for teacher training issued by a national authority on educational matters in Germany (KMK [Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany], 2011). The competence concept underlying this research strongly refers to Weinert (2001) and Oser (2013), emphasizing that (academic) knowledge is merely a necessary, but by no means sufficient precondition in forming out a competence. A (professional) competence itself is understood as the ability to perform correctly and successfully in varying professional situations. Thus, it is essential for evaluating competences to provide or create situations, in which elements pertaining to the respective competences may become observable in manifest behaviour.

In evaluating their pedagogical competences within the KOSTA context, students rated the frequency with which they acted in accordance with the standards within the field experience they had just completed. Of note, this evaluation of the student teachers’ competences does not exclusively refer to what is learned inside the practical field experiences. Rather, the field experiences provide the possibility to apply in practise what has been learned in theory in the prior studies at the university. Thus, in the sense of creating a ‘hybrid space’ (Zeichner, 2010), the evaluation procedure itself strives to link the theoretical knowledge obtained in campus courses to the proper behaviour in the field experiences.

In recent years, the overall need for quality assurance in teacher education has been widely acknowledged, but implemented or planned procedures of external and internal evaluation of teacher education programmes vary considerably between the EU member states (Eurydice, 2006). Implementing common evaluation standards on an official level would at least require (a) roughly comparable structures of teacher education and (b) a political will concerning the arrangement on a common scientific background. As these requirements would inevitably involve slow-going political processes, it seems questionable whether there will (ever) be a ‘common’ evaluation system on a European level. An alternative, however, might be the adaptation of common evaluation procedures arranged on an informal level amongst teacher education institutions in different European countries. As, in our eyes, our approach of longitudinally evaluating student teachers’ pedagogical competences on the basis of their behaviour in practical field experiences, covers at least one facet of system outcomes, we encourage teacher education institutions across Europe to use or adapt our instruments and design in order to create a common database enabling system comparisons across institutions and countries.

Method

In a German university with a strong focus on teacher education, N = 429 teacher students participated in an extensive survey including personality measures [adaptations of the “extraversion”, “neuroticism” and “conscientiousness” dimensions from the Big five model (Brandstätter & Mayr, 1994), a measure of general “self-efficacy” (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1999)], measures of personal competence (“helpfulness and empathy”, “placidity and patience”, “sense of duty”, “success orientation” and “curiosity”; Frey, 2008) and a measure of intrinsic motivation to engage in teacher studies. As these measures are supposed to be widely stable across time, they were collected during the students’ first week at the university. In the further course of their pre-service studies at the university, the same students evaluated themselves in two several-week practical field experience episodes (t1 and t2). For each of the standards within the KMK/KOSTA framework belonging to the “teaching”, “education”, “assessment” and “innovation” competence domains, students rated the frequency with which they displayed the competence in practical field experiences. In modelling latent change in these four domains, Schneider and Bodensohn (2014; Schneider, 2013) have reported a ‘net’ positive development (as expressed by a magnitude of the latent change variable significantly greater than zero) in the “teaching” and “innovation” domains, but not in the “education” domain (due to insufficient model fit pointing at theoretical problems in the specification of the KMK’s standards, the model for the “assessment” domain could not be interpreted). Aside from the ‘net’ effects, there was significant inter-individual variation in the latent change parameters in all domains, indicating that student teachers differ in their competence development. In this paper, we examine whether the abovementioned personality measures collected at the beginning of the studies prospectively account for individual differences in student teachers’ later competence development. These personality variables are sequentially introduced as latent predictors into the latent change models for the “teaching”, “education” and “innovation” domains. It is tested whether each of these predictors has a significant effect on the latent-change-in-competence variable.

Expected Outcomes

Introducing personality traits and measures of personal competence as predictor variables into the latent change models of the development of pedagogical competences in the course of the studies permits to identify a number of factors contributing to a (positive) development in the different competence domains. Variables significantly contributing to a shift in “teaching” competence include “stability” (the reverse of “neuroticism”), “self control” (an adaptation of the “conscientiousness” construct) and “self-efficacy”. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation and aspects of personal competence promote a shift in “teaching” competence. Concerning a likewise shift in “education” competence, “self control”, “self-efficacy” and “action orientation” aspects, along with a number of personal competences, prove to be effective predictors. With respect to a shift in “innovation” competence, “stability”, “self-efficacy”, “action orientation following failure” and again some personal competences can be identified as significant predictors. The differential pattern of effects across the domains of professional competence suggests that different aspects of personality foster development in distinct areas of competence. On the contrary, “self-efficacy” is found to be an effective predictor across all domains, suggesting a crucial role of this construct in future teachers’ competence development. However, in spite of being able to significantly predict change in competence development, the overall low to moderate magnitudes of the standardized path coefficients reveal that the role of personality factors in competence development must not be over-estimated. Beyond doubt, certain aspects of personality are helpful for teachers’ development of their professional competence. Yet, personality variables alone do by no means determine whether a candidate is to become a highly professional teacher.

References

Brandstätter, H., & Mayr, J. (1994). Die "Lehrer-Persönlichkeits-Adjektivskalen" (LPA): Ein Instrument zur Selbsteinschätzung berufsrelevanter Persönlichkeitsmerkmale. In J. Mayr (Ed.), Studien zur Bildungsforschung & Bildungspolitik: Vol. 11. Lehrer/in werden (pp. 231–247). Innsbruck: Österr. Studien-Verl. Cochran-Smith, M., & Fries, M. K. (2001). Sticks, stones, and ideology: The discourse of reform in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 30(8), 3–15. Eurydice. (2006). Quality assurance in teacher education in Europe. Brussels: Eurydice. Foerster, F. (2008). Personale Voraussetzungen von Grundschullehramtsstudierenden: Eine Untersuchung zur prognostischen Relevanz von Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen für den Studien- und Berufserfolg. Münster: Waxmann. Frey, A. (2008). Kompetenzstrukturen von Studierenden in der ersten und zweiten Phase der Lehrerbildung.: Eine nationale und internationale Standortbestimmung. Landau: Verlag Empirische Pädagogik. KMK [Secretariat of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany], (2011). The Education System in the Federal Republic of Germany 2010/2011 (Excerpt). Retrieved from http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/doc/Dokumentation/Bildungswesen_en_pdfs/teachers.pdf Oser, F. (2013). Vorwort: Auf der Suche nach Ausbildungskompetenzen. In F. Oser, T. Bauder, P. Salzmann, & S. Heinzer (Eds.), Ohne Kompetenz keine Qualität. Entwickeln und Einschätzen von Kompetenzprofilen bei Lehrpersonen und Berufsbildungsverantwortlichen (pp. 7–8). Kempten: Julius Klinkhardt. Schneider, C. (2013). El desarrollo de las competencias pedagógicas de estudiantes del profesorado en fáses prácticas y el papel de la formación universitaria. In S. C. Arredondo (Ed.), Reflexiones, Análisis y Propuestas sobre la Formación del Profesorado de Educación Secundaria. (pp. 226–228). Madrid: Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Schneider, C., & Bodensohn, R. (2014, in press). Core competences of students in university teacher education and their longitudinal development: First results of the KOSTA study. In K.-H. Arnold, A. Gröschner, & T. Hascher (Eds.), Pedagogical Field Experiences in Teacher Education: Theoretical Foundations, Programmes, Processes, and Effects. Münster: Waxmann. Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. (Eds.). (1999). Skalen zur Erfassung von Lehrer- und Schülermerkmalen: Dokumentation der Psychometrischen Verfahren im Rahmen der Wissenschaftlichen Begleitung des Modellversuchs Selbstwirksame Schulen. Berlin: R. Schwarzer. Retrieved from http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~health/self/skalendoku_selbstwirksame_schulen.pdf Weinert, F. E. (2001). Concept of competence: A conceptual clarification. In D. S. Rychen & L. H. Salganik (Eds.), Defining and selecting key competencies (pp. 45–65). Ashland, OH: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers. Zeichner, K. (2010). Rethinking the connections between campus courses and field experiences in college- and university-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 61(1-2), 89–99. doi:10.1177/0022487109347671

Author Information

Christoph Schneider (presenting / submitting)

University of Koblenz-Landau

Department of Childhood and Adolescent Education

Landau

Rainer Bodensohn (presenting)

University Koblenz-Landau

Landau

Frank Foerster

University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

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