| Summary: | The aim of this study, which is part of a research project called LÄRK at the University of Kristianstad, is to further examine how a group of pre-service teachers reason about relational competence, as well as examining their opinions regarding the importance of relational competence in the teaching profession. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate whether the project has had some kind of long term impact on the students’ ideas with regards to their way of reasoning about their pedagogical practice in stimulated recall interviews and how their understanding of their own relational competence may have been influenced by the process. The results show that the students have the conviction that relational competence is of great importance to the teaching profession and that good relationships based on trust and confidence are fundamental to learning. The results that have emerged also indicate that the students developed increased knowledge of relational competence and what distinguishes a teacher with relational competence. It is suggested that the students find it easier to apply a more general theoretical understanding of relational competence rather than engaging in a self-reflective analysis of their behavior in the recorded film sequences from VFU. It is likely that the project’s three educational sessions did not generate sufficient progression for students to develop a glimpse of the competencies that underlie the definition of relational competence. Although such an assumption supports the idea that relational competence should be initiated in an early stage in teacher education, the result indicates that more research is needed on the competence and how it should be implemented in teacher education.
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