Full Program »

366: Do teachers´ knowledge and applied knowledge develop during their training on social and emotional learning?

Do teachers´ knowledge and applied knowledge develop during their training on social and emotional learning?
Modern learning psychology emphasizes the importance of teachers facilitating their pupils´ with life skills providing a healthy and meaningful life. This requires sufficient social and emotional competence. This research focuses at evaluating qualitatively the knowledge and applied knowledge attained in a widely used international training programme, Lions Quest (LQ).The programme aims at improving teachers’ knowledge and skills in social and emotional competence, supporting pupils´ self-esteem, developing a safe learning environment, preventing pupils’ risky behaviour and promoting service learning at school. This provides an opportunity to support better motivation and commitment for schoolwork.
Information about teachers’ learning and applying their knowledge regarding the LQ topics was at this phase collected of 153 Finnish teachers before attending the LQ and after the training. Comparison data was collected of 61 Finnish teachers not attending the LQ. The training was arranged on two days in a row and it lasted 8 hours per day. Later the same information will be collected of 2000 teachers in different countries. In this phase of the study open questions will not be used so the final research will be a mixed method research containing both qualitative and quantitative parts.
This is a qualitative part of the study, aimed to investigate the qualitative changes in the content of teachers´ answers in response to given questions concerning the use of skills taught during the Lions Quest. The answers were analyzed and categories were established to condense the information of the qualitative changes in the answers before and after the LQ.
The preliminary qualitative results indicate that the participants showed more knowledge of the topics taught after the training and were also more capable of applying their knowledge to typical situations related to teacher profession. The skills measured concerned LQ goals in SEL and service learning. Among the comparison group no significant differences between the pre- and the post-test were found in any measured field.
Even though promoting SEL and pupils’ good life are often recommended, there is not much multi-national evidence about the development of teachers’ competence in taking charge of them. This study adds to both theoretical and practical development of continuing teacher training.

Author(s):

Minna Berg    
University of Helsinki
Finland

Markus Talvio    
University of Helsinki
Finland

Kirsti Lonka    
University of Helsinki
Finland