Student Teachers’ Practice Self-Efficacy Prior to Their First Field Practice in Schools: Interrelatedness of Subconstructs Within Three Domains of Practice

Developing a strong sense of self-efficacy is thought to be decisive for student teachers to help them prepare for challenges in the profession. However, while most recognize that confidence in teaching involves multiple and interrelated dimensions, we know little about the interplay between dimensions, hindering our understanding of how self-efficacy is nurtured and affected. This study examines how different self-efficacy dimensions relate, using a recently developed and targeted measure of Practice Self-Efficacy (PSE) for student teachers. With chain graph models, used on survey data from 405 first-year student teachers from a Danish University College, we find that most, but not all, PSE dimensions are related, with the strongest associations found among dimensions within the Teaching-related domain. Most PSE dimensions were not associated with student teachers’ background characteristics, except for Differentiation PSE and Teaching in itself PSE. Thus, teaching experience prior to teacher education was negatively associated with Differentiation PSE, whereas it was positively associated with Teaching in itself PSE and with differing strengths dependent on chosen teaching major. The results point to possible areas in teacher education where interventions may effectively enhance practice self-efficacy among first-year students.