Abstract:

An issue of concern and challenge educational policies has been teacher training in Higher Education. Teacher professionalization is an arduous task that involves knowing, knowing how to be and knowing how to do. From this holistic perspective, coherent with the current paradigms of education and its neurodidactic foundations (Forés & Ligioiz, 2009), it is essential that there be a recognition of the meanings and beliefs that each individual has been building and emotionally anchoring throughout their personal life history. While teachers have a greater knowledge of their network of beliefs and preferences, it will be easier for them to develop critical thinking about their work and they will be more aware of the quality or not of their teacher action. Therefore, the challenge in the initial teacher training is to strengthen the strictly teaching skills and personality traits so that, in the future, teachers will develop their teaching work efficiently. Traditionally in the Higher Education has only been considered academic performance as a final result, although this is a multidimensional concept, where one of the relevant factors is the development of personality. This study takes as a reference the characterization of the effective personality understood as the set of personal characteristics that allow to face the environment in a relevant way. Based on these premises, the aim of the study is to investigate whether teaching in the different subjects of the Teacher's Degree contributes to the development of the personality of future teachers. In the research, 126, first-year students, of the Master Degree in Primary Education, and 116 third-year students of the Master Degree in Early Childhood Education participate voluntarily. For the collection of data, an instrument designed specifically for the purposes of this study was used and validated through the expert technique. Students point out that the most developed personality traits in teaching are "being respectful" and "demanding respect" (88.1%), "being autonomous" (85.9%) and having self-control (83%). Likewise, the findings highlight that 21.5% and 4.2% of students state, respectively, that only "sometimes" and "almost never" promote competencies related to "being impartial". Similarly, 15.7% of students argue that "sometimes" and 5.4%, that "almost never" are motivated to "be enthusiastic". The results constitute a wake-up call to reconsider a teaching oriented not only to the learning of contents but also to the development of the effective personality of the students, to foster their positive self-esteem, to have self-confidence, to be self-demanding, to have resources to achieve what they propose (expectations) or knowing how to choose the best decision among different alternatives (decision making); Only then will teachers, in their future professional performance, be able to perform successfully in changing, varied and complex work environments.

Keywords:

European Higher Education Area, university teaching, effective personality, professional development, initial training.