A Study of Student-Teachers' Emotional Experiences and Their Development of Professional Identities

Abstract

A reciprocal relation has been identified between teacher emotion and teacher professional identity. However, the underlying mechanism explaining this complex interaction remains underexamined. Moreover, limited attention has been paid to the emotional dimension of student-teachers' development of professional identity during university coursework. To bridge this gap, the present study explores how student-teachers' emotions reciprocally interact with their professional identities, drawing data from questionnaires, reflections, and interviews with students taking courses related to language teaching in a teacher-training university. Both quantitative and qualitative data delineated the intertwined trajectories of student-teachers' emotional experiences and the development of professional identity in the learning process of becoming teachers. Mainly triggered by course-related factors, student-teachers experienced a wide array of emotions, of which the polarity and intensity were determined and mediated by their goals and actions deriving from their professional identities. Those aroused emotions, in turn, signaled the developmental process of professional identity and promoted or hindered their emerging identities. This paper concludes with some implications for initial teacher education programs.

“Will I be molded or crushed?” Artistic representations of student teachers’ identities and emotions

“…Teacher identity is a commonly researched topic (e.g., Clandinin and Connelly, 2000;Beauchamp and Thomas, 2009;Lavina et al, 2020;McKay, 2021;Chen et al, 2022); however, scholars have varying definitions of what constitutes teacher identity. In this study, we understand teacher identity as a narratively constructed and reconstructed response to the question: "Who am I as a teacher?"…”

“…In this study, we extend the utility of the metaphor to examine the ways in which teacher candidates experience K-12 classrooms during their coursework and student teaching. It serves as an important lens for thinking about the ways in which teacher candidates make sense of their emergent teacher identities as part of their teacher education program, where instructional practice and theory are often privileged over discussions of identity and emotion (Chen et al, 2022(Chen et al, ). 10.3389/feduc.2022…”

An ecological examination of the emotions of Chinese high school mathematics teachers in a long-term teaching improvement program

“…Among them, Chen (2021) utilized the cutting-edge Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis method to examine how teacher emotions were influenced by personal, contextual, and emotional capacity, with personal factors including knowledge, values, professional beliefs, and so on, contextual factors consist of policy, sociocultural, organizational, and stakeholder factors, and emotional capacity including emotional labor strategies, emotion regulation, and emotional intelligence. The findings provided a general overview for succeeding researchers to engage in teacher emotion research ( Chen et al, 2022 ). Regarding consequences, teacher emotions can have a wide range of consequential effects ( Hargreaves, 1998 ; Frenzel et al, 2009b ; Chen, 2021 ).…”

Emotional Intelligence and Professional Identity of Student Teachers During Practicum

“…For student teachers, the initial training stage which is known as practicum is a preparation stage to experience real-life teaching and actual classroom settings at school while developing their professional identity (Chong et al, 2011). The development of professional identity among student teachers is a dynamic and complex process that can be influenced by various factors at school such as the school environment, relationships with students and other teachers, mentoring styles, training curricula, and the student teachers' emotional experience (Juairiah et al, 2020;Mahaya, 2016;Chong et al, 2011;Chen et al, 2022). Student teachers who have strong professional identities are better at dealing with challenging educational tasks compared to those with lower professional identities.…”

“…Student teachers who have strong professional identities are better at dealing with challenging educational tasks compared to those with lower professional identities. For this reason, it is important that their professional identities are studied through different lenses, including the lens of emotion (Chen et al, 2022).…”