The Role of Intelligence and Self-Concept for Teachers’ Competence

Abstract

Research on intelligence and competence has developed widely independent of each other. The present paper aims at relating these traditions and at integrating the dominant models to fill gaps in the respective theories. We test the structural models derived from this integration in a series of confirmatory factor analyses and a latent moderated structural equations approach using teachers as an example. The data reveal that both fluid intelligence (gf) and domain-specific knowledge affect teachers’ ability to solve the domain-specific items. Teachers’ academic self-concept related to mathematics explains individual differences beyond gf. An interaction effect between gf and self-concept exists for teachers’ pedagogical content and general pedagogical knowledge, but not for their mathematics knowledge. This finding indicates that a positive self-concept cannot compensate for a lack of gf, but it supports the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge in case of high gf, probably because it facilitates overcoming challenges.

Impact of Competency and Self-esteem on the Teacher Engagement at Jinja City Primary Schools, Uganda

“…Scholars (Akoul et al, 2020a;Akoul et al, 2020b;Zhao et al, 2021;Jabeen et al, 2023;Blömeke et al, 2022;Sumantri & Wardhani, 2018;Rama & Sarada, 2017;Sahay, 2020;Singh, 2018;Srinivasan & Pugalenthi, 2020) related teacher competence and self-esteem. However, there are population, methodological and controversial gaps that emerged from the above studies.…”

“…However, there are population, methodological and controversial gaps that emerged from the above studies. for instance, a study by Blömeke et al (2022) was conducted on teachers in primary schools, that by Akoul et al (2020b) was on secondary school teachers, while that by Akoul et al (2020a) was done on university teachers, hence producing a population gap. Methodologically, the study by Zhao et al (2021) used a moderated mediation model to test the relationship between self-esteem and academic engagement among adolescents in China, while the majority of studies used regression analysis to establish the relationship between variables under study.…”