Teachers’ Key Competencies for Innovative Teaching

The educational process is by its nature and essence very dialectical, so it necessarily requires teachers to have a developed whole set of various competencies. The aim of the research was to examine teachers on self-assessment of competencies that were crucial for innovating the teaching process. The sample of respondents included 1300 elementary and secondary school teachers in the territory of Southern Serbia. The instrument used was a five-point TCS scale of attitudes, with a total of 48 items (individual competencies). The results of the analysis showed that teachers, based on their self-assessments, highly value all diverse groups of competencies, which fully confirms the general hypothesis. The results also showed the existence of statistically significant differences in the degree of expression of attitudes about competency groups with regard to independent research variables, within special hypotheses, based on which the first was rejected, the second partially and the third and fourth special hypothesis fully confirmed. The issue of key competencies of teachers is certainly one of the fundamental issues when it comes to quality teaching, its innovation, generally successful and efficient dealing with the educational process. Based on these postulates, there is hope that the obtained research results will represent a good starting point and incentive for further research work in this field in the future.