4. Results

This chapter presents the results of the analyses carried out to investigate the research question and the hypotheses of the study. The first section exposes the results of the cross-sectional analyses. These were undertaken to explore the relevant characteristics of the diagnostic competence of the participating preservice primary school teachers and to examine the connections of those characteristics with other features of preservice teachers’ background, such as professional knowledge, beliefs and practical experience. The second section presents the results of the longitudinal analyses conducted, which focused on the development of the diagnostic competence of preservice primary school teachers after participating in the university seminar sequence. In addition, this section analyzed the associations of changes in the development of the competence with the features of preservice teachers’ background in order to identify aspects that can play an important role in the development of the competence within initial teacher education.