How pre-service teacher self-efficacy changes during the professional experience placement: a growth mixture model

Longitudinal studies are essential to examine teacher self-efficacy (TSE) changes during the formative stages of pre-service teacher development. However, limited longitudinal studies have been conducted on this population. Among the existing studies, no study has been found to have applied an individual-centred modelling approach to examine TSE changes; similarly, few studies have examined longitudinal change in domains other than classroom teaching, nor in the Chinese context. The present study surveyed 205 pre-service teachers at three time points, namely at the beginning, middle and end of the professional experience placement. This study used a two-domain TSE scale assessing classroom teaching and school-level activities. The data were analysed using growth mixture modelling in Mplus. Three types of trajectories were fit for TSE for classroom teaching and five types were fit for school-level activities. For classroom teaching, trajectories reflect a high-TSE increasing class, low-TSE decreasing class, and medium-TSE non-increasing class. For school-level activities, trajectories reflect high-TSE increasing, medium-TSE non-increasing class, low-TSE greater increasing class, high-TSE decreasing class, and low-TSE non-increasing class. The classification of TSE trajectories differed according to gender and degree program. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.