One of the main concerns in school settings are behaviour-related problems (OECD, 2014). There has been an increase of news warning society about the saturation of the Mental Health Centres for Children and Youth in Catalonia (Spain): the number of youth and children assisted in those centres increased from 59,570 to 70,521, from 2014 to 2015 (Blay, 2017).  The same article reported a 27% increase in children and youth attendance at mental health units in hospitals registered during the same period. This data supports the need to address this problem preventively within schools in most cases, while some would still need more intensive supports. To address this in a universal and inclusive way it is necessary to focus on school practices, considering all students not only those mentioned in the statistics previously exposed. Thus, this inclusive approach means encouraging and supporting all students to learn how to self-regulate their behaviour until the end of schooling.

In this sense, promoting competences that can help students to self-regulate their behaviour will act as a preventive measure putting education first. This way students should acquire pro-social attitudes replacing violent or inadequate behaviours. Preventive interventions are more inclusive and less stigmatizing (Humphrey, 2013 in Humphrey, et al. 2016).

However, several investigations have found that teachers have neither enough training nor resources to deal with behaviour-related situations within classrooms (Suberviola-Ovejas, 2012; Cejudo & López-Delgado, 2017). Zinsser, Denham, Curby, y Shewark (2015) also indicate that teachers feel they do not have enough tools to promote socio-emotional skills or effectively address students’ behavioural-self-regulation needs.

Teachers’ responses to misconducts are usually reactive instead of proactive (Scott et al., 2005). Furthermore, Thompson (2012) points out that the lack of training causes rigid, reactive and punitive responses to the students’ misbehaviour which can worsen the situation. Moreover, the less competent in management skills teachers are, the more aggressive-situations are observed among students (Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, 2008). Therefore, student behavioural self-regulation is one of the most common concerns among teachers and a real need for teacher training as well. Thus, this should be addressed from the initial teacher training.

Despite the publications about behavioural self-regulation, there is less research addressed at initial teacher training. In addition, investigations focused on initial teacher training are usually aimed at promoting self-regulation skills in teacher-student themselves instead of teaching them how to promote these skills in their future pupils (Castillo, Fernández-Berrocal & Brackett, 2013; Palomera, Briones, Gómez-linares, & Vera, 2017). This training is not focused on educational support but on the self-knowledge of future teachers.

The analysis of emotional competence carried out by López-Goñi & Goñi, (2012) is relevant for our investigation since they compare its presence in the teacher training curricula from various universities of different countries. They found out that interpersonal competence -which includes social and communication-related aspects- was relatively considered in the English, German, French and Portuguese curricular guidelines, but not in the Spanish ones. We highlight this competence since, according to Cejudo & López-Delgado (2017), this competence could lead to better conflict resolution skills.

However, simply identifying a competence in a curriculum does not have to correspond with the training actually received by teacher-students (Buettner, Hur, Jeon, & Andrews, 2016). The same authors conclude saying that more research on teacher training is needed. They suggest asking future teachers if they feel prepared and confident to put these competencies into practice. Following this, the purpose of this communication is to analyse teacher-students’ perspectives about their knowledge and preparedness to promote students’ behavioural self-regulation.

This proposal is part of a mixed method research aimed at improving initial training teaching plans in order to better prepare future teachers in students’ behaviour self-regulation. This research is funded by the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (Catalan Government) and by the Institute of Education Sciences (University of Barcelona). In this communication, we analyse and discuss the data provided by a questionnaire addressed to students enrolled at the last year of the teacher training degree of the University of Barcelona, the Rovira i Virgili University, the University of Girona and the University of Lleida. This instrument was validated by five experts that have already published about higher education, teacher-student competencies or behaviour in high impact journals. The experts judged the representativeness and relevance of the items by assigning a mark from one to ten. They were also asked to classify items into themes. To validate the questionnaire, we also conducted a focus group with last-year teacher students. Nine experienced teachers currently working in inclusion-oriented schools validated the questionnaire throughout a Qualtrics quest. All three groups of validators (experts, students and experienced teachers) were asked about the appropriateness of the vocabulary used and the writing of the items. The questionnaire is made up of three sections: demographics, behavioural self-regulation and perceptions of university training in competences to promote students’ behavioural self-regulation. Questionnaire’s themes are: 1) Causes of behavioural self-regulation problems, 2) Responsible to promote students’ behavioural self-regulation, 3) Target population, 4) Training in competences to promote students’ behavioural self-regulation. The questionnaire has 21 questions: there are multiple choice answers, 7 questions with Likert scale and 3 opened questions. However, in some closed questions space is provided to allow respondents to explain in depth their situation. The questionnaire is being delivered online in February 2019. The estimated Early Childhood and Primary Education degrees’ student population of the University of Barcelona is 666. 434 at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and 257 at the University of Lleida. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 24.0 software (IBM, SPSS) is being used to perform statistical analysis. Frequencies and descriptive statistics will be calculated for all variables. We are also applying an exploratory factor analysis, a principal components analysis and an analysis of correlations between factors. Such analyses will show the factorial structure of the scales, its weight and confidence level. NVivo pro 12 version is used to per perform the content analysis of the opened questions.

The results will show the prevailing conceptions among teacher-students about what causes disruptive behaviour, who should promote students’ behavioural self-regulation, the responsibilities of different educative stakeholders, in which educational stage should these competencies be promoted, which are the targeted students. Results will show the type of actions or supports that teacher-students believe more effective to promote students’ behavioural self-regulation. The findings will provide a first insight into teacher-students’ attributions about issues related to students’ behavioural self-regulation. This will show the perspective from which teacher-students are going to address behaviour-related situations within classrooms. Future teachers should be aware of the important role they have to play to prevent these situations. They should handle behavioural situations inclusively. The pre-service conceptions of the teacher-students from three of the largest universities in Catalonia can affect the quality of future school practices. Moreover, results will show the perception of preparedness of teacher-students to carry out different tasks and strategies that can promote students’ behavioural self-regulation. Analysing this, we will know about teacher-students’ self-efficacy in conflict resolution and classroom management tasks and strategies. The results will be compared by groups according to the degree in which teacher-students are enrolled, the minor that they are studying, their prior experience with students, and possible specific training about behaviour. Indicating significant differences between groups, we expect to know if there are some who are more aware of behavioural research-based practices than others. This analysis will be useful to know what makes some students, theoretically, better prepared than others to inclusively support students, having implications in teacher training. We expect to find out to what extent this need to train teacher-students in promoting students’ behaviour self-regulation is covered by the studied teachers’ degree. Finally, we will point out competencies that should be promoted in higher education to better train teachers.

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