Abstract:

Teaching is one of the most difficult and demanding professions. At the same time, it cannot be performed by everyone because a good teacher has to master a range of competencies and personal qualities related to this profession. Most frequently, these competencies are mentioned in the context of the teaching profession: knowledge of the subject matter, pedagogical competence, managerial, civic and communication competencies, creative and critical thinking and competencies related to the use of modern information and communication technologies.

We frequently hear about teachers burning out, which is conditioned by several successive and also unrelated factors. These include continuous contact with children and adolescents, mutual and ongoing cooperation with colleague teachers, low societal prestige of this profession in the Czech Republic and their low financial compensations, and a number of others.

Teachers of pre-school, primary and secondary education are trained in the Czech Republic in specialised institutes, which are mostly the faculties of Czech universities, namely pedagogical and natural science faculties and faculties of art. Their students become experts not only in their specific fields but also specialists in the fields of psychology, pedagogy and didactics. The question remains about university studies or rather university educators. It is clear that teaching at universities is done by scholars and experts in their respective fields. However, it is not known if they are also educated in pedagogy, psychology and didactics, and have been through the so-called pedagogical minimum.

The paper presents a research carried out at the selected faculties of two universities of the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic, namely VSB – Technical University of Ostrava and University of Ostrava in the period between December 2018 and January 2019, which aimed at answering whether university teachers have knowledge in pedagogy, psychology and didactics and if this knowledge is important for their teaching.

Keywords:

Teacher, university teacher, pedagogy, psychology, didactics, pedagogical minimum, minimum pedagogical education, pedagogical competencies.