Effectiveness of Prospective Lower Primary and Kindergarten Teachers in the Interpretation of Facial Expressions

Facial expressions play an extremely important role in communication and social interaction due to their association with emotional experiences. Given the importance of communication based on respect for children's emotionality in personality development, the aim of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of prospective lower primary and kindergarten teachers in the interpretation of facial expressions. The overall sample consisted of 330 first-year students of the Faculty of Education, University of Kragujevac (90 prospective lower primary teachers and 240 prospective kindergarten teachers). Effectiveness in the interpretation of facial expressions was measured using the Emotion Recognition Test by P. Ekman. The results show that students are worryingly unsuccessful in the interpretation of facial expressions and point to the necessity of devoting greater attention to this ability in the education of prospective lower primary and kindergarten teachers.