Teacher education students self-assessement of their social competencies in the context of sustainable development

Abstract

Social competence is an important outcome of education for sustainable development since the process of social learning contributes to real change. Sustainable development refers to development processes combining economic and social well-being and efficiency with environmental resilience and health, both here, now, elsewhere, and in the future. Aim of the research was to examine students’ self-assessment of social competence. A total of 127 students of the Faculty of Teacher Education in Rijeka participated in the research. A Scale of self-assessment of social competencies in the context of sustainable development was also constructed and validated. The analysis of scale identified three factors – Goal Orientation, Self-Expression and Global Competences. The results of the research indicate satisfactory applicability of the constructed scales, but as this is preliminary research, therefore these conclusions should be handled with caution. The self-assessment of student social competencies was found to be from moderate to high. Although the results are not worrying, they indicate the need to enrich interpersonal skills fur future teachers to increase their confidence in their own performance.