Teachers' Opinion about Teaching Competences and Development of Students' Key Competences in Spain

As in other European countries, in Spain, the student curriculum of primary and secondary schools is organised by competences. The same applies with the curriculum for initial teacher education dealing with the same educational levels. However, in terms of competences, the analysis of classroom reality seems to prove the existence of obstacles in the development of teaching. For this reason, as trainers of future teachers, we wonder about the teaching competences that teachers consider most necessary to enable students to learn key skills. In order to address this issue, a study was conducted with a sample of 413 working teachers (286 of primary and 127 of secondary education). We used an ad hoc questionnaire which was subjected to an indepth statistical analysis. The results showed that primary and secondary school teachers considered the capability to promote students' motivation, effort and responsibilities as the most important of the competences. As a consequence of this study, implications have been established for professional practice and suggestions have been made for initial teacher education. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.