Assessing Social-Emotional Competence of Prospective Teachers: A Gender-Based Evaluation for Holistic Teacher Development

Social-emotional competence (SEC) is a central component to the holistic growth of instructor candidates, which is found to impact their ability to control emotions, develop relationships, govern the classroom, and have general efficacy in their profession. The present research aimed to identify gender-specific differences in SEC amongst trainee teachers, which would help shed some light on the emotional and interpersonal preparation of all these teachers to the pedagogical profession. A convenience sampling method was used to recruit two hundred potential teachers (fifty percent male, n=100 and fifty percent female, n=100) in two privately funded institutions. It was noted through analyses that Female candidates scored substantially higher in Self- Awareness, Self-Management and Social Awareness implying that they have better emotional understanding, regulation strength and empathic sensitivity. On the contrary, a statistically significant sex difference was not revealed in the realms of Decision-Making and Relationship, which suggests that a similar level of competence in the ethical choices and their work skills was demonstrated in both genders. The aggregate SEC scores of the sample were distributed between moderate and high. These results emphasise the urgent need in special instructional intervention solutions that are directed to strengthen socio-emotional skills in male trainees, promote equal feelings development, and eventually enhance the quality of teaching professionals in the future.