Challenges and opportunities in developing prospective primary school teachers’ affective dispositions: the case of Amhara region, Ethiopia

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the possible opportunities and challenges in developing desirable affective dispositions (DADs) and weakening undesirable affective dispositions (UADs) of primary school prospective teachers in three teacher education colleges (TECs) of Amhara region. To achieve these purposes, a qualitative inquiry research method was used. The data were collected from purposively selected college leaders, teacher educators, and prospective teachers using interview, FGD, and open-ended questionnaire. The data were analyzed qualitatively using thematic analysis supported by frequency count percentage. The results revealed that there are different challenges and opportunities in each of the sample TECs in the process of developing DADs and weakening UADs of prospective teachers. The investigated opportunities and challenges were themed as hidden, societal, and official curriculum-related factors. This implies that prospective teachers’ DAD development and UAD weakening in the sample colleges was the function of these three curriculum forms.