Relationships Between Student Characteristics and Changes in Attitudes, Concerns, Anxieties, and Confidence About Teaching During Teacher Preparation

Abstract

This study investigated changes in students’ anxiety, attitude, concerns, and confidence about becoming a teacher during teacher training and whether these changes were related to selected student characteristics. The subjects were three groups of students (N = 581) at three stages of their teacher preparation: beginning their first required education course, just prior to student teaching, and at the end of student teaching. Significant changes in anxiety, concern, attitude, and confidence about teaching were identified. These changes, however, did not follow the consistent or desirable patterns for each measure or for all sample subgroups that developmental theorists such as Fuller suggested. Changes in anxiety and confidence about teaching moved in a consistently positive direction for the total sample but not for all subsamples, attitude toward teaching changed dramatically and inconsistently among the subsamples but showed no overall change for the total sample, and concerns about teaching tended to increase prior to student teaching but to decrease following student teaching.