Using a specially developed test, BilWiss-UV shows that prospective teachers benefit from educational science knowledge, particularly in coping with stress and emotional exhaustion. At the same time, the results open up possibilities for optimising teacher training and making it more practice-oriented.
In teacher training, prospective teachers not only study the subjects, they will be teaching, but also acquire further competences in the educational science part of their training. The usefulness of this knowledge in educational science is often stimulates discussions.
Since there has been a lack of systematic studies so far, the core of the joint project BilWiss-UV was the development of a standardised test to record and systematise the educational science knowledge of prospective teachers in the first place. In the Munich sub-project, we were able to optimise the test with regard to the area of teaching.
The evaluation of the data showed that both prospective teachers and teachers in the profession consider the teaching of educational science knowledge to be relevant by consensus. However, the educational programmes offered at the universities differ greatly and are rarely binding. However, we found that at the end of their training, students in teaching all have a similar level of knowledge, which students from other disciplines, beginning students or career changers do not have. According to our findings, prospective teachers benefit from educational science knowledge, for example, in coping with stress and emotional exhaustion in the preparatory service.
The findings from the project should contribute to opening up perspectives for the optimisation of teacher training courses, which often seem too far away from practice for both teachers in training and ther professors.
For further information on the project, see here.