A causal-comparative study of the educational success with preservice English foreign language teachers

Abstract

This research aims at identifying and describing the construct “educational success” of senior preservice English foreign language teachers in the degree of Primary Education at the University of Granada while doing their school practices. In order to fulfil the objective, we have applied, and adapted to our setting, the instrument circle of school life (López & Valls, 2013) on 88 future language teachers. The focus of our study is centred on the connections between the dependent variable (educational success) and the independent variables (gender, birthplace, parents’ profession, area and kind of school and motivations towards the degree). In general terms, mean data out of the 12 items gathered in the instrument highlight that the relationships with students (children) and colleagues are pivotal. Nevertheless, our data reflect a lack of teacher training in leadership. In specific terms, the results point out that participants with teaching background, parents who are also teachers, experience additional wellbeing. Moreover, the results shed light on the importance of social, affective and motivational dimensions in the teaching profession and training as well as its pronounced connection with educational success.