A study of brain dominance of prospective early, primary and secondary education teachers

English

Event
GKA EDU 2020:     9th International Conference on Education and Learning
10/10/2020

Keywords
Ciencia tecnología innovación educación

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the brain dominance of prospective early childhood, elementary and secondary school teachers and whether their cognitive abilities are oriented towards some mental skills, as well as several aspects of their personality and behavior. Determining how brain dominance can affect the educators teaching style is essential to better understand how they can fully engage their future students’ attention and mental capabilities and promote a more Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) approach. The study, which was conducted with survey model, was carried out with the participation of 249 college students (207 female, 42 male) from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain). Chi-square and cross-tab analysis were used to analyze the data according to age, language, gender and degree level. As a result of the analysis of data, it was determined that there is a significant association between gender, remembering faces and ocular dominance. Statistically significant differences were also found in team sports activities preferences in favor of prospective early childhood educators. The analysis also revealed younger college students are more interested in language and social studies subjects than in math and science and do prefer team sport activities over individual ones. Moreover, these results may help teacher trainers in higher education institutions to adapt their teaching techniques and methods that suits prospective teachers’ preferences and affect their teaching practices in the future.