Browsing by Author "Vikman, Janina"

Objectives. The teachers of primary and secondary education are expected to have strong social-emotional skills and to be able to teach such skills to their students. Even though teachers are generally viewed as important people to help students develop strong communication skills, there are quite few studies regarding the ways in which teachers’ social-emotional skills can be developed. Teachers may also not be aware of all the options available to develop their social-emotional skills. This integrative literature review aims to view the social-emotional skills of primary and secondary education teachers, and the options to develop such skills. As the previous studies have shown, one’s social-emotional skills can develop, and thus this study focuses on finding the ways in which these skills can be developed. Methods. This literature review was carried out as an integrative literature review. The research material was compiled both manually and systematically from four different databases. The material consisted of seven different research articles dealing with the existence and development of social-emotional skills of primary and secondary education teachers. The analysis of the research material was conducted by adapting inductive content analysis. Results and conclusions. The results indicated that primary and secondary education teachers can develop their social-emotional skills either through external support or through self-operation. Developing through external support can happen either by participating in a formal training or by participating in an informal training or receiving peer support. Developing through self-operation can happen through awareness and reflection, or by practicing in real-life situations. However, using one of these skill-developing factors does not outcast the possibility to strengthen social-emotional skills using other factors as well: teachers can develop using both external support and self-operation. Contemplating social-emotional skills might also bring up negative emotions. Experiencing negative emotions might help teachers to both understand the importance of social-emotional skills and develop their own skills.