Social-, health care and rehabilitation educators’ competence : a cross-sectional study

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Social-, health care and rehabilitation educators’ competence : a cross-sectional study © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published version Mikkonen, K.; Sorvari, P. L.; Kuivila, H.; Sjögren, T.; Korpi, H.; Koskinen, C.; Koskinen, M.; Koivula, M.; Koskimäki, M.; Lähteenmäki, M. L.; Saaranen, T.; Sormunen, M.; Salminen, L.; Mäki-Hakola, H.; Wallin, O.; Tuomikoski, A. M.; Holopainen, A.; Kääriäinen, M. Mikkonen, K., Sorvari, P. L., Kuivila, H., Sjögren, T., Korpi, H., Koskinen, C., Koskinen, M., Koivula, M., Koskimäki, M., Lähteenmäki, M. L., Saaranen, T., Sormunen, M., Salminen, L., Mäki-Hakola, H., Wallin, O., Tuomikoski, A. M., Holopainen, A., & Kääriäinen, M. (2022). Social-, health care and rehabilitation educators’ competence : a cross-sectional study. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2022.2123853 2022 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=csje20 Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csje20 Social-, health care and rehabilitation educators’ competence: a cross-sectional study K. Mikkonen, P.L. Sorvari, H. Kuivila, T. Sjögren, H. Korpi, C. Koskinen, M. Koskinen, M. Koivula, M. Koskimäki, M.L. Lähteenmäki, T. Saaranen, M. Sormunen, L. Salminen, H. Mäki-Hakola, O. Wallin, A.M. Tuomikoski, A. Holopainen & M. Kääriäinen To cite this article: K. Mikkonen, P.L. Sorvari, H. Kuivila, T. Sjögren, H. Korpi, C. Koskinen, M. Koskinen, M. Koivula, M. Koskimäki, M.L. Lähteenmäki, T. Saaranen, M. Sormunen, L. Salminen, H. Mäki-Hakola, O. Wallin, A.M. Tuomikoski, A. Holopainen & M. Kääriäinen (2022): Social-, health care and rehabilitation educators’ competence: a cross-sectional study, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1080/00313831.2022.2123853 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2022.2123853 © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 27 Oct 2022. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 380 View related articles View Crossmark data Social-, health care and rehabilitation educators’competence: a cross-sectional study K. Mikkonen a *, P.L. Sorvari a *, H. Kuivila a , T. Sjögren b , H. Korpi b , C. Koskinen c , M. Koskinen d , M. Koivula e , M. Koskimäki e , M.L. Lähteenmäki f , T. Saaranen g , M. Sormunen h ,L. Salminen i ,H. Mäki-Hakola j ,O. Wallin k ,A.M. Tuomikoski l,m , A. Holopainen n,o,p and M. Kääriäinen a,p,q a Research Unit of Health Science and Technology, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland; b Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland; c Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Caring and Ethics, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway; d Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Department of Caring Science, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland; e Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland; f Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere, Finland; g Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing Science, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland; h Faculty of Health Sciences, Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition and Department of Nursing Science, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland; i Faculty of Medicine, Department of Nursing Science, University of Turku, Turku, Finland; j Pedagogical R&D, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere, Finland; k Degree Programme in Social Services, Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Tampere, Finland; l The Finnish Centre for Evidence-Based Health Care: A Joanna Briggs Institute Centre of Excellence, Helsinki, Finland; m Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland; n Nursing Research Foundation, Helsinki, Finland; o WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing, Helsinki, Finland; p The Finnish Centre for Evidence-Based Health Care: A Joanna Briggs Institute Centre of Excellence, Helsinki, Finland; q Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland ABSTRACT An educator’scompetenceinfluences the implementation of evidence-based education and the overall quality of social and health care. This study aimed to identify distinct competence profiles from Finnish social, health and rehabilitative care educators, as well as describe which personal and professional characteristics influenced belonging to a certain profile. Data were collected from 28 educational organizations located throughout Finland using the Health and Social Care Educators’Competence instrument. The survey was answered by 422 educators. The performed K-means cluster analysis identified three distinct educator competence profiles, which differed in terms of self-assessed expertise in various competence areas and certain background characteristics. The results highlight that educational institutions should concentrate on refining the digital competence of educators, which requires networking, collaboration, and work-related pedagogical competence. The differences in evaluation identified for the three profiles demonstrates that more experienced educators should mentor their less experienced counterparts to ensure a high quality of education. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 3 January 2022 Accepted 24 August 2022 KEYWORDS Competence; educator; health care; social care; rehabilitation Introduction Social, health and rehabilitative care educators play a key role in educating students in these fields to become highly competent professionals (Mikkonen, Koskinen, et al., 2019). An educator’s © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. CONTACT K. Mikkonen kristina.mikkonen@oulu.fi, Research Unit of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 5000, Oulu FI-90014, Finland @Kristinamikkon *Equal contribution between two authors. SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2022.2123853 competence is essential to the successful implementation of evidence-based health care education (Salminen et al., 2013) and is important for promoting student learning (Fowler et al., 2017; Salminen et al., 2013). Despite the importance of social, health and rehabilitative educators’expertise, little attention has been paid to designing –and implementing –instruments that can reliably measure educator competence, including knowledge, skills and educational values. Individual aspects of health care educators’knowledge, skills and values have been extensively studied (Dekker-Groen et al., 2011; Fowler et al., 2017; Koivula et al., 2011; Leonard et al., 2016; Salminen et al., 2013), while only a few studies have focused on how educators require multi-dimensional competence (Gibson et al., 2019; Mikkonen, Koskinen, et al., 2019; WHO, 2016; Zlatanovic et al., 2017). The latest Education Reform (2016) highlighted that the competences required for educating students change and evolve along with our rapidly changing society. For example, digitalization has broadened the skillset that health care professionals must master to successfully interact with their patients or clients (Konttila et al., 2019; Vehko et al., 2019); hence, social, health and rehabilitative care educators must be able to adjust to digital innovations in health care (Zlatanovic et al., 2017). As such, these educators must continuously develop their competences if they are to provide high-quality education that is in line with the rapidly changing health sector (Zlatanovic et al., 2017). Exploratory and descriptive research concerning social, health and rehabilitative care educators’competence can significantly impact the provision of health care and health promotion within society. Furthermore, the comprehensive exploration of social, health and rehabilitative care educators’competence can provide knowledge about which competence areas must be further developed to enhance students’professional development. The present study aimed to describe social, health and rehabilitative care educators’self-assessed competence according to distinct competence profiles, as well as examine which personal and professional characteristics influenced belonging to a certain profile. Background Previous research has shown that educators in the field of social, health and rehabilitative care must have diverse competencies, including knowledge, skills and attributes relevant to their area of work (Mikkonen, Koskinen, et al., 2019; Zlatanovic et al., 2017). Generally, educators are expected to have strong professional expertise in two broad areas: pedagogy and subject matter (Zlatanovic et al., 2017). Hence, social, health and rehabilitative care educators have two distinct roles, i.e., they are social, health and rehabilitative professionals first and educators second (Laurencelle et al., 2016; Zlatanovic et al., 2017). These educators differ from educators representing other fields as they must continue performing their professional responsibilities along with teaching duties, i.e., split time between the clinical and learning settings. According to the World Health Organization (2016), a nursing educator’s competence is based on knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours that can be divided under the eight following areas: theories and principles of adult learning; curriculum and implementation; nursing practice; research and evidence; communication, collaboration and partnership; ethical/legal principles and professionalism; monitoring and evaluation; as well as management, leadership and advocacy (WHO, 2016). Tapani and Salonen (Tapani & Salonen, 2019) have defined teachers’competencies in Finnish vocational education (without distinction of educators’background in social, health and rehabilitative care professional field) by scholarship in teaching and learning relating to pedagogy, guidance and counselling, and interaction, scholarship in authentic learning and development referring to pedagogical leadership, partnership and innovator competency, and scholarship in evaluation and monitoring associated with assessment. According to the latest study from Mikkonen, Koskinen, et al. (2019), social- and health care educators’competence was defined based on nine areas of competence, namely, competence in the profession they are educating students in, the subject being taught, ethics, pedagogy, management and organization, innovation and development, collaboration, handling cultural and linguistic diversity, and continuous professional development. Additionally, Kuivila et al. (2020) interviewed health 2K. MIKKONEN ET AL. sciences students who were currently completing their teacher education to further describe the competences associated with the educator role. At this stage in their professional career, the students already expressed that the following eight competence areas are crucial to the successful education of students: leadership and management competence; evidence-based practice competence; subject competence, ethical competence, pedagogical competence, collaboration competence, internationalization competence, and continuous professional development competence (Kuivila et al., 2020). In a national report of the key-government funded project, social, health and rehabilitative care educators’competencies were distributed among micro and macro competence areas. The micro competence areas were explained by competence in social, health and rehabilitative care science and profession; competence in pedagogy (curriculum work, teaching and mentoring, student-centred teaching method and learning environments), competence in ethics and culture, competence in interaction, collaboration and network, and competence in administration and welfare. The macro-level competence were explained by competence in evidence-based practice, competence in sustainable innovation and future, and continuing competence development (Mikkonen, Koivula, et al., 2019a). Previous studies of educators in the field of social, health and rehabilitative care have shown that these educators value their own practical professional skills and rely on their professional subject knowledge (Ramsburg & Childress, 2012; Salminen et al., 2013). Furthermore, previous research has stressed that social- and health care educators must maintain their skills through continuous education (Salminen et al., 2013). There is some evidence that educational institutions and healthcare settings in Europe differ in the competence requirements of educators (European Commission, 2020), with numerous reasons cited for why different countries and regions differ in the competence of social- and health care educators (Fowler et al., 2017; Koivula et al., 2011; McAllister & Flynn, 2016). Work experience from the health care sector and acting as an educator, along with the skills learned during postgraduate studies, project management and/or research work, have been linked to an educator’s ability to effectively teach students (McAllister & Flynn, 2016). Koivula et al. (2011) also discussed how evidence-based practice can only be maintained if every educator proactively reads and shares the latest relevant research. In addition to following the latest research, educators can maintain their competence by participating in practical work, which can positively influence the educators’curriculum development work (Fowler et al., 2017; McAllister & Flynn, 2016; Salminen et al., 2013). It is also important to continuously gauge which areas of competence educators are not confident in, as educators have previously reported lacking pedagogical skills (Salminen et al., 2013) as well as the need to improve development work (Ramsburg & Childress, 2012), research and evidence-based practice (Koivula et al., 2011), integrating digital technology into education (Oprescu et al., 2017; Zlatanovic et al., 2017), the balance between education and administration work, and defending patient care in the political arena (Ramsburg & Childress, 2012). It has been reported that social, health and rehabilitative care students expect their educators to maintain and develop their professional skills, which is supported by findings that educators strongly influence student learning (Fowler et al., 2017). Improving and maintaining the competence of educators increases their confidence, which subsequently improves student learning experiences and enhances the quality of education (Fowler et al., 2017;Zlatanovic et al., 2017). Therefore, research on the competence of social, health and rehabilitative care educators is important. For the purposes of this study, a social, health and rehabilitative care educator is defined as a professional qualified in at least one of the social- or health care professions defined by the World Health Organization (2013) and having completed 60 ECTS credits in pedagogical studies (University of Applied Sciences Act, 2014). These educators commonly work at universities, university of applied sciences or vocational colleges. In Finland, social, health and rehabilitative care educators’qualification is regulated by Government regulations and law in order to ensure highquality professional education. Vocational education educators are required to have a minimum of master’s degree with additional of 60 ECTS credits in pedagogical qualification and at least five years of working experience in the social, health and/or rehabilitative care field (Decree on SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 3 the Qualification Requirements for Teaching Staff,1150/2017). Vocational education offers qualifications for young people without upper secondary qualification and adults in working life in, for example, community nursing of professional qualification to working life (MINEDU, 2020). At the University of Applied Sciences educators are required to have a minimum of a suitable master’s degree and at least three years of working experience in the similar position (Government Decree on Polytechnics, 932/2014) and recommended to have 60 ECTS credits in pedagogical qualification. Universities of Applied Sciences offer qualifications suitable for working life and its development in multiple professional areas, including social, health and rehabilitative care professions, offering a bachelor’s degree qualification (Government Decree on Polytechnics, 932/2014; University of Applied Sciences Act, 2014). Universities offer master’s and doctoral degrees in health sciences education with the goal to produce experts in leadership, education, clinical expertise and health management. In Finland, health sciences’degree programmes at the universities offer master’s degree of health sciences teacher degree education with the aim to provide highly competent educators profiled for the education of vocational or university of applied science education in social, health and rehabilitative care fields (Mikkonen, Koivula, et al., 2019a). Social, health and rehabilitation care educators are able to receive their 60 ECTS credit pedagogical qualification in health sciences education, in schools of professional teacher education, and educational sciences. The pedagogical qualifications among those three educational possibilities distinguish in connection of pedagogical competence development into one’s own professional field and teaching practice, of which only master’s degree in teacher education offers precise qualification relevant for social, health and rehabilitation care professions. Material and method Aims The present study aimed to describe social, health and rehabilitative care educators’self-assessed competence according to distinct competence profiles, as well as examine which personal and professional characteristics influenced belonging to a certain profile. The research questions in this study were: (i) how do social, health and rehabilitative care educators perceive their level of competence in social and health care education?; and (ii) which personal and professional characteristics are related to social, health and rehabilitative educators’self-assessed competence in social- and health care education? Design This study applied a quantitative secondary data analysis approach in that the research analyzed statistical data to make inferences about the studied phenomenon. Previously, the same data has been used to develop and test an empirical model explaining educators’competence areas and statistical relationships between those areas (Mikkonen et al., 2022). The data was collected by implementing a cross-sectional survey design. This research was part of the TerOpe project, funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, which aims to develop national, and internationally comparable, competence requirements for social, health and rehabilitative care educators (Mikkonen, Koivula, et al., 2019a). Participants A total of 2330 social, health and rehabilitative care educators from 21 universities of applied sciences and seven vocational colleges in Finland were invited to participate in the study. The inclusion criteria were: being a part- or full-time social, health or rehabilitative care educators and working at a university of applied sciences or vocational college. Professional experience was 4K. MIKKONEN ET AL. not held as an inclusion criteria to participate. A total of 422 participants responded to the invitation. Instrument This study applied the Health and Social Care Educators’Competence (HeSoEduCo) self-assess- ment instrument (Mikkonen et al., 2020), which covers eight sub-dimensions of competence and includes 43 items, more specifically: competence in evidence-based practice (8 items); competence in digital collaborative learning (5 items); competence in student-centred pedagogy (8 items); competence in collaboration and societal aspects (5 items); competence in leadership and management (6 items); competence in cultural and linguistic diversity (4 items); competence in mentoring students in professional development (4 items); and competence in subject and curriculum (3 items). Participants scored each item using a four-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = partially disagree, 3 = partially agree, 4 = strongly agree). Based on the calculated Cronbach’s alpha values, which ranged from 0.72 to 0.89, the instrument demonstrated sufficient reliability (Mikkonen et al., 2020). Data collection Data were collected from social, health and rehabilitative care educators from 21 universities of applied sciences and seven vocational colleges that were randomly selected to provide an accurate geographical representation of the Finnish population. The data were collected during the autumn of 2018. The participants responded to an electronic questionnaire via Webpropol software which included certain background questions (i.e., age, gender, background in educator education, work organization, work experience, professional field and job description) along with the HeSoEduCo instrument. The educators received a link to the questionnaire via a contact person at each organization, with either three to four reminders to complete the questionnaire sent between two-week intervals. Data analysis The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS software (V.25, IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY) by two researchers (KM, SPK). K-means cluster analysis was performed to identify three –A, B, C- edu- cator competence profiles according to the eight sum-variables of HeSoEduCo self-assessment instrument. K-means clustering is a methodology of algorithm, which aims to collect cluster of participants with the nearest mean value, serving as a prototype of the cluster. Clustering methodology is rarely used in nursing science, but was found to be an effectful method to identify participant’s clusters of competence levels (Männistö et al., 2020; Saukkoriipi et al., 2020). Four different cluster models, with cluster groups of five, four, three and two have been primarily tested with the cut-off held to be not less than 5% of a group representing a total sample. Three group model has been eventually chosen. The significance of differences between the educator competence profiles was determined using the Kruskal–Wallis test, and further analyzed by the Bonferroni post-hoc test by implementing Mann Whitney test. The significance of differences in background characteristics was analyzed using Chi-squared test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The threshold for statistical significance in all of the analyses was set at p-value < 0.05. The participating educators’ levels of competence were interpreted according to the applied Likert scale, with a low level representing a score <2.49, an intermediate level representing a score between 2.5 and 3.49, and a strong level representing a score > 3.5. SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 5 Ethical consideration This study was conducted in compliance with the ethical principles of human research (Declaration of Helsinki, 2013). The social, health and rehabilitative care educators were informed that participation in the study was voluntary, and that their personal data would be anonymized and stored in a confidential manner. The participants had the right to withdraw from the study at any time during the research process. Responding to the electronic questionnaire was interpreted as informed consent to participate in the study (World Medical Association, 2013). No bioethical committee approval was required according to the local ethical regulations when the study was conducted, since the study used a questionnaire design. However, research authorizations to perform the research were obtained from the participating organizations accordingly (Data Protection Act, 1050/2018). Results Participants The research material consisted of data from 422 social, health and rehabilitative care educators. The response rate in this study was 18%. Of the participants, 88, 260, and 32 served as educators in the fields of social care, health care, and rehabilitation, respectively, while 42 were educators in combined units. Most of the participants worked at universities of applied sciences (n= 332), with the rest employed at vocational colleges (n= 90). Of the total participants, 378 were women, 42 were men and two did not indicate their gender. The educators who participated in the study had an average age of 51 years (range 23–66) and an average of 14 years of experience as a teacher (range 0–45). There was noticeable variation in the education level of educators, yet most held either a Master’s (71%) or doctoral (21%) degree. The participating social, health and rehabilitative care educators were divided into three clusters, educator profiles A, B, and C (see Table 1). Profile A consisted of 183 educators, profile B consisted of 146 educators and profile C consisted of 93 educators. The identified educator profiles did not differ significantly with regards to characteristics such as age, gender, Finnish/Swedish national languages, level of education and educator’s educational background, year of graduation, and field of teaching. However, the three educator profiles did differ significantly in terms of current work situation (p< 0.001), work organization (p= 0.003), educator experience (p= 0.023), work experience in corresponding field (p= 0.003), and all the aspects of education competence (p< 0.001). Educators’competence in social-, health care and rehabilitation education The identified educator profiles (A, B, and C) differed significantly (p< 0.001) across all of the investigated competence areas between each group (see Table 1). Profile A educators’competence ranged from the lowest evaluated competence in cultural and linguistic diversity (mean 3.52) to the highest in the competence of student-centred pedagogy (mean 3.89). Profile B and C educators’ competence ranged from the lowest evaluated competence in digital collaborative learning (B: mean 2.89; C: mean 2.42) to the highest competence in mentoring students in professional competence development (B: mean 3.71; C: mean 3.40). Overall, the participating social, health and rehabilitative care educators felt that they had good levels of competence. Educators belonging to profile A had the strongest competence (mean > 3.5) across all eight areas, while educators belonging to profiles B and C demonstrated intermediate competence (mean 2.5–3.49) in most competence areas. The educators belonging to profile B profile reported subject and curriculum competence (mean 3.58, SD 0.41), student professional development guidance competence (mean 3.71, SD 0.31) and student-centred pedagogical competence (mean 3.61, SD 0.25) to be their strongest areas of competence. These educators rated their competence in other areas –evidence-based 6K. MIKKONEN ET AL. practice competence (mean 3.48, SD 0.38), leadership and management competence (mean 3.34, SD 0.37), collaboration and societal competence (mean 3.07, SD 0.41), digital collaborative learning (mean 2.89, SD 0.44) and cultural and linguistic diversity competence (mean 3.24, SD 0.44) –as being at an intermediate level. Educators belonging to profile C reported intermediate competence Table 1. Educator profiles (n= 422). Characteristics and competence Profile A (n= 183) Profile B (n= 146) Profile C (n= 93) p-value Age in years, mean (SD) 1 51.98 (7.95) 50.39 (8.99) 49.52 (9.17) 0.560 2 Gender, % Male Female 9.3 89.6 9.6 90.4 11.8 88.2 0.546 3 Languages, % Finnish Swedish 91.8 8.2 87.7 12.3 95.7 4.3 0.100 3 Education, % Vocational qualification University (Bachelor’s) degree University (Master’s) degree University (Doctoral) degree 0.0 1.1 72.7 26.2 0.7 0.0 83.6 15.8 0.0 2.2 80.7 17.2 0.167 3 Teacher training (pedagogical education), % Vocational teacher training Teacher training in health sciences Teacher training in educational sciences No teacher training 33.3 55.7 10.9 0.0 36.3 54.8 8.2 0.7 40.9 44.1 14.0 1.1 0.399 3 Year of completion of highest degree, mean (SD) 2005 (8.33) 2006 (7.81) 2006 (8.41) 0.584 2 Current teacher work field, % Social services Healthcare Rehabilitation Combination of social services, healthcare and/or rehabilitation 21.9 57.4 7.1 13.6 19.9 67.8 7.5 4.8 20.4 60.2 8.6 10.9 0.484 3 Current employment, % Part-time teacher Full-time teacher Lecturer Principal lecturer Head of education Other 1.6 10.4 71.6 13.7 2.7 0.0 3.4 17.8 70.5 5.5 2.1 0.7 7.5 32.2 49.5 9.7 1.1 0.0 <0.001 3 Current work organization, % Vocational college University of applied sciences 14.2 85.8 76.0 24.0 68.8 31.2 0.003 3 Work experience as an educator, years, mean (SD) 14.96 (8.56) 13.37 (9.14) 11.92 (8.82) 0.023 2 Work experience in corresponding field, years, mean (SD) 19.04 (10.02) 16.24 (10.12) 15.14 (9.16) 0.003 2 I have the ability to do teamwork with my colleagues. 3.95 (0.22) 3.91 (0.29) 3.67 (0.50) < 0.001 4 Participation in development work enhances my competence. 3.81 (0.43) 3.55 (0.64) 3.26 (0.69) < 0.001 4 I know how to take the principles of sustainable development into account in my practice. 3.55 (0.55) 3.23 (0.66) 2.86 (0.65) < 0.001 4 Competence in evidence-based practice 3.74 (0.29) 3.48 (0.38) 3.17 (0.47) < 0.001 4 Competence in leadership and management 3.68 (0.31) 3.34 (0.37) 2.99 (0.39) < 0.001 4 Competence in collaboration and societal 3.59 (0.33) 3.07 (0.41) 2.70 (0.43) < 0.001 4 Competence in subject and curriculum 3.86 (0.25) 3.58 (0.41) 3.19 (0.53) < 0.001 4 Competence in mentoring students in professional competence development 3.88 (0.22) 3.71 (0.31) 3.40 (0.39) < 0.001 4 Competence in student-centred pedagogy 3.89 (0.14) 3.61 (0.25) 3.26 (0.32) < 0.001 4 Competence in digital collaborative learning 3.60 (0.34) 2.89 (0.44) 2.42 (0.54) < 0.001 4 Competence in cultural and linguistic diversity 3.52 (0.44) 3.24 (0.44) 2.62 (0.47) < 0.001 4 1 M:mean (SD: standard deviation). 2 oneway ANOVA test. 3 Chi-Square. 4 Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann Whitney test used for Bonferroni correction. p< 0.05 (marked in bold). SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH 7