The knowledge gained from previous investigations and research projects (Darling–Hammond, 2012; De Vicente, 2006; Perrenoud, 2004) yielding the most promising international findings on teacher training (Day, 2018; Helen, 2011; Latorre & Blanco, 2014; Vaello, 2009) forms the basis of this research proposal which focuses on the field of professional teaching ethics. While in recent years the pairing of university training and professional ethics has generated great research interest at the national and international levels, most of the studies undertaken in this regard call for the need to incorporate the teaching of ethics into academic curricula to train fully-fledged and responsible professionals (Torquemada & Loredo, 2021), a basic requirement for achieving a just and inclusive society.

Focusing on teaching professionals, UNESCO sets the goal of achieving quality education (SDG 4, which is the framework for this project), and this implies having well-prepared and committed professionals. The training of ethical teachers or committed leaders is thus in the spotlight of the scientific community (Bonifácio et al., 2025; Bolívar & Pérez, 2022). There is a growing awareness of the importance of professional ethics in higher education and the need for a more systematic and in-depth approach to its teaching. Our project aims to contribute to this effort.

The project is titled Training for Ethical Leadership in the Teaching Profession: Diagnosis and Analysis and it has been funded by the Vice-Rectorate for Research and Transfer of the University of Granada, Spain. This research project cannot be disconnected from its social context, the Faculty of Education, Economy, and Technology (FEET) of Ceuta, affiliated with the University of Granada, whose instruction includes future teachers responsible for the education of Spain’s next generations, that is, future citizens who should be committed, responsible, creative, innovative, solidary... Thus, this study questions whether faculties of education are fostering generations of teachers capable of acting with integrity and responsibility. 

We are concerned with the issue of professional teaching ethics. Within ethics, we focus on a cornerstone: the moral authority and leadership as a proactive attitude required by future teachers to carry out their profession. Situated in the sphere of teaching leadership, moral authority or ethical leadership is conceived as the attitude with which future teachers will face their profession, that is, the skill to exercise their future profession from an attitude of service to others and from professional integrity –from a sense of a job well done–. Day (2018) points out that this moral authority “is more than the application and knowledge of techniques and skills, it includes a sense of care and social justice for all members of the community” (p. 52).

Our general objective is to assess whether ethical leadership competence can be a factor in the selection of future teachers, in line with the current work of the Conference of Deans of Education of Spain. To this end, we have established the following specific objectives:

1. Identify the ethical leadership profile of student teachers without practicum experience and their attitude toward teaching.
2. Determine the ethical leadership profile of student teachers with practicum experience and their attitude toward teaching.
3. Design a professional ethics intervention program for students completing their practicum.
4. Implement the ad hoc training plan on teaching ethics during the practicum for Education Degrees.
5. Analyse whether there has been a change in ethical attitudes from the beginning to the end of the practicum period after student participation in the intervention program.

This line of study is an innovative proposal in the context of Spanish universities. It is necessary to include parameters of responsibility that guarantee commitment to training and to society, as required by international bodies (Buxarrais, 2021). 

This work does not violate any of the ethical principles to be respected in research. However, the ethics committee of the University of Granada has been asked to approve it. Participating subjects, through informed consent, will be made aware of the research, as well as the purposes of data collection and their participation. This study will use a mixed methodological approach. Some objectives have different methodological requirements. We present the specific aspects of each. Objective 1 Design: We approach quantitative logic through the descriptive survey-type method (McMillan & Schumacher, 2005), which relies on a questionnaire. Participants: All third-year student teachers without practicum experience from both Education degrees offered at the FEET will participate. Instruments: We will use Torquemada and Loredo's (2021) Teacher Professional Ethics Questionnaire. It is an already standardized instrument, and it meets the reliability and validity parameters required. Analysis: Descriptive analysis, analysis of variance and K-means cluster analysis will be applied. Objective 2 We will follow the same design and apply the same instrument as in objective 1. Participants: All fourth-year student teachers with practicum experience will participate. As with the previous objective, their data will be highly relevant to the study. Objective 3 Design: We will design an intervention program on professional teaching ethics by reviewing the literature and previous training experiences in the subject. Objective 4 Instrument: The intervention program will be developed through working sessions during the practical teaching seminars throughout the Practicum II of both Education degrees. Participants: All student teachers enrolled in the Practicum II will complete the training program. Objective 5 Design: A mixed pre-post repeated measures design will be used. All student teachers will complete the questionnaire on professional teaching ethics at the beginning and end of the intervention plan. According to Asensio and Ruiz de Miguel (2017), the beliefs with which students enter the Education degrees do not change at all if they are not addressed. We will control for biases regarding possible differences in applying the intervention program since the same material will be taught, the same instructors will be present, the same number of sessions will be held, and the students will attend the same number of times. Instruments: In addition to the questionnaire, we will use the intervention program on professional teaching ethics designed ad hoc. Analysis: Descriptive analysis techniques, repeated measures ANOVA using the paired samples T statistic, and Pearson correlation analysis will be used.

This is a recently awarded project that will run from January 2026 to January 2028. By the time of ECER, we will have scientific evidence to present to the academic and research community. For the moment, we highlight that in Spain, for access to teaching careers, we do not even consider a specific academic requirement. Students enter the minimum grade on the university entrance test. Therefore, we do not even select the best students on the basis of their average score. We do not even know if they are the most suitable. Our working hypothesis is that the exercise of ethical leadership would be an element that would contribute to the selection of the 'right' teacher, not at the beginning, when entering the career, but at the end, when obtaining the degree, after the students have gone through a training programme focused on teaching ethics. This is the driving force behind the present project. Buxarrais’s study (2021) shows that student teachers do not receive any training in the implications of professional responsibility and attitudinal commitment throughout their four years at the university. However, ethical competence is a matter of concern. We know that acquiring ethical competence would require 16 working sessions, according to the study by Araujo et al. (2021). In this regard, Palomera et al. (2017) also establish that 40 hours of training would suffice to change complex cognitive skills. Our plan will address these requirements, and its content will incorporate the dimensions proposed by Dolev and Itzkovich (2021), using moral dilemmas, case studies, and problem-solving (Jinnam, 2015).

Araujo, U., Pinheiro, V., & Arantes, V. (2021). A Multidimensional and Complexity Program to Develop Teachers’ and Educational Ethos. In F. Oser, K. Heinrichs, J. Bauer, & T. Lovat (eds), The International Handbook of Teacher Ethos (pp. 377-391). Springer. Asensio, I., & Ruiz de Miguel, C. (2017). Medida y evaluación de las creencias sobre la profesión de los maestros en formación. Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, 20(3), 79-91. Bolívar, A., & Pérez, P. (2022). El compromiso y la ética profesional en el acceso a la docencia. Innovación Educativa, (32). https://doi.org/10.15304/ie.32.8699 Bonifácio, E., Proença, A., & Carvalho, L. (2025). The Presence of Ethics in Initial Teacher Training: Reasons and Implications. Education Sciences, 15(8), 1046. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15081046 Buxarrais, R. (2021). Teacher’s Ethos and Moral and Professional Identity. In F. Oser, K. Heinrichs, J. Bauer, & T. Lovat (Eds), The International Handbook of Teacher Ethos (pp. 125-143). Springer. Darling–Hammond, L. (2012). Educar con calidad y equidad: los dilemas del siglo XXI. Fundación Chile, Centro de Innovación en Educación. Day, C. (2018). Educadores comprometidos. Qué son, qué hacen, por qué lo hacen y lo que verdaderamente importa. Narcea. De Vicente, P. S. (2006). Algunos conceptos clave en el hacer del profesor. Enseñanza & Teaching: Revista interuniversitaria de didáctica, 24, 205-232. Dolev, N., & Itzkovich, Y. (2021). Incorporating the Development of Social-Emotional Skills into the Ethos of Teachers and Schools–Practical and Theoretical Aspects. In F. Oser, K. Heinrichs, J. Bauer, & T. Lovat (Eds), The International Handbook of Teacher Ethos (pp. 261-277). Springer. Helen, B. (2011). Raising the bar: Ethics education for quality teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 36(7), 76-93. Jinnam, Y. (2015). Challenges and Tasks of Philosophical Counseling: Is Ethical Counseling Possible? Philosophia, Journal of Korean Philosophical Society, 135, 53-83. Latorre, M. J., & Blanco, F. J. (2014). Professional Ethics Training in Higher Education. The New Educational Review, 38, 17-28. McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2005). Investigación educativa (5ª ed). Pearson. Palomera, R., Briones, E., Gómez-Linares, A., & Vera, J. (2017). Cubriendo el vacío: mejorando las competencias sociales y emocionales del profesorado en formación. Revista de Psicodidáctica, 22(2), 142-149. Perrenoud, (2004). Diez nuevas competencias para enseñar. Graó. Torquemada, A. D., & Loredo, J. (2021). Validación de un cuestionario de evaluación de la ética profesional docente universitaria. Revista Iberoamericana de Evaluación Educativa, 14(1), 101-114. https://doi.org/10.15366/riee2021.14.1.006 Vaello, J. (2009). El profesor emocionalmente competente. Graó.