The pedagogical training of Secondary Education (ES) teachers has been largely ignored in the Spanish setting, and especially in the current pandemic situation due to Covid-19, it has not been given enough presence and importance in the construction of professional teaching knowledge. Due to the teaching needs arising from the pandemic, the need for specialist knowledge about educational aspects to become a teacher, especially pedagogical aspects, is being overlooked. In the Spanish context, teachers are required to have pedagogical training obtained through teaching experience or through a one-year Master's course in Secondary Teacher Training (60 ECTS). This can lead to professional socialisation processes that may be based on the imitation or reproduction of models that have nothing to do with the current professional situation (Sheridan, 2016), especially related to the development of students’ socio-personal skills (Cochran-Smith et al., 2020; Flores, 2020). Despite this, many studies have shown the deficiencies of this training in providing teachers with adequate pre-service knowledge, and there is a gap between this training and the professional induction and professional development of teachers (Nóvoa, 2019).  Similarly, actions are needed to address the way future teachers shape their conceptions of pedagogical training (its usefulness and value) in the construction of professional teaching knowledge. Evidence shows that teachers are already beginning to assess this training, but not in all its complexity or in the same way (e.g., Serrano and Pontes, 2016). However, the result of the training is defined as being out of context and not very useful, in many cases becoming a mere requirement for accessing the teaching profession (e.g., Martín-Romera, 2017). Contact with the profession through experience seems to mark a change in the recognition of the importance of having pedagogical knowledge, and the need for training is identified in this respect (Márquez, 2009; Terigi, 2011). However, we have not found any studies that perform a more in-depth analysis of the way these assessments are made and the aspects that may be influencing their configuration. Awareness of these aspects allows us to define actions that can be transferred to pre-service teacher education to encourage recognition of their importance as a first step in building professional teaching knowledge.

The purpose of the study was to find out how practising teachers and teachers in pre-service education assess the pedagogical knowledge to become a teacher, analysing its possible evolution with experience, and exploring factors and characteristics that may be associated with recognizing its importance.

The mixed methodological model used is defined in the framework of a parallel congruent overlapping design, combining a questionnaire with closed and open questions administered to 295 SE teachers and 207 Master's Degree students in Secondary Education Teacher Training (MAES) and qualitative interviews with 13 SE teachers. Two ad hoc questionnaires were administered, measured on a 5-point Likert rating scale [None (1); Very little (2); Some (3); A fair amount (4); A lot (5)]. They were designed based on empirical and theoretical evidence, as well as some validated instruments (e.g., Serrano, 2013; Sheridan, 2016; Terigi, 2011), and they presented acceptable psychometric properties of reliability and validity (Martín-Romera et al.). For the teachers, the questionnaire was structured in five blocks with 27 positive and inverted items: i) Necessary aspects to become a teacher (3 items); ii) Discovering the importance of having pedagogical knowledge (6 items); iii) Influential factors in the recognition of the importance (8 items, and an open question "Others"); iv) Evolution of the assessment (3 items); v) Ways to acquire pedagogical knowledge (5 items). For the students, the questionnaire was administered after the completion of the practice teaching periods. It was structured in four blocks and contained 14 items: i) Necessary aspects to become a teacher (3 items); ii) Discovering the importance of having pedagogical knowledge (4 items); iii) Influential factors in the recognition of the importance (4 items, and an open question "Others"); iv) Evolution of the assessment (3 items). We used the qualitative phenomenological interview (Kvale 2011). The guide was structured in two dimensions: i) Personal and professional data, corresponding to the independent variables included in the questionnaire, in order to obtain demographic information about the interviewees that would be relevant in the search for explanations for their assessments and opinions and the possible evolution experienced; ii) the second interview was designed to collect information about the experience (Patton, 2015) of the evolution that took place in the assessment of pedagogical knowledge and the way it is acquired; it consisted of seven topics that correspond to the blocks of the questionnaire. A descriptive analysis was carried out of frequency and the central and the content analysis technique.

Teachers and student teachers value the need for pedagogical knowledge, especially when they come into contact with professional practice, which shows them its benefits as a basis for their teaching action and for building their professional knowledge. As several studies have indicated (e.g., Bolívar, 2007; Manso and Martín, 2014; Márquez, 2009), this is a relevant time to work on future teachers’ ideas that precipitate the "clash with reality" in professional practice. Sheridan's studies (2016) have shown that pedagogical knowledge begins to be more important to students when they begin their Practicum, changing their conceptions of the profession to more collaborative and student-centred forms rather than teacher-centred methods. Teacher trainers also play an important role in these representations. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to various actors’ representations of the profession and pre-service education (Autor, 2017). Pre-service teacher education is not highly rated in their assessment of pedagogical knowledge, revealing limited importance in its acquisition. These results are similar to those obtained by Flores (2005), where both novice and experienced teachers placed little value on formal learning contexts. All of this requires a break with the dichotomy between disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical knowledge that has been blocking the political and practical changes needed to address a training reform focused on the creation of professional teaching knowledge that meaningfully encompasses both types of knowledge, in relation to the demands to educate our young people in today's society (Novóa, 2019). Thus, earlier actions are necessary in pre-service teacher education to enable them to value this from the beginning through reflective processes that allow them to build their professional teaching knowledge and benefit more from the training process.

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