Motives for becoming a teacher, coping strategies and teacher efficacy among Swedish student teachers

ABSTRACT

The current study examined whether different motives for entering teacher education and different coping strategies in distressful situations during teacher training were associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers. A sample of 517 Swedish student teachers completed a questionnaire. According to the findings from multivariate regression analysis, student teachers who scored higher in intrinsic and altruistic motives and cognitive restructuring, and lower in self-criticism, tended to show greater teacher efficacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Student teacher
• motives for becoming a teacher
• coping
• teacher efficacy
• teacher education

Introduction

The problems of ‘reality shock’ or ‘praxis shock’ among novice teachers (Ballantyne and Retell 2020; Kelchtermans and Ballet 2002) and teacher stress and its association with teacher burnout (for reviews, see Garciá-Carmona, Marín, and Aguayo 2019; McCarthy et al., 2016; Prilleltensky, Neff, and Bessell 2016) have been well documented. However, student teachers already face praxis shock and stress to varying degrees during their teacher training programmes (Chepyator-Thomson and Hsu 2007; Chong, Low, and Goh 2011; Deng et al. 2018; Haritos 2004). Sources of stress in teacher education are found within the teaching practicum in particular, and include student misbehaviour, aggression and challenging behaviour, discipline and classroom management issues; heavy workload, time management and pressure; poor professional ethics and negative attitudes of teachers and other school staff; encountering students who live in poor circumstances; worries about one’s competence and performance; and being evaluated (Adam, Koster, and Brok 2020; Chaplain 2008; Deng et al. 2018; Hong 2010; Kokkinos, Stavropoulos, and Davazoglou 2016; Lindqvist, Thornberg, and Colnerud, 2021; Paker 2011; Teng 2017).

Aspects that may influence student teachers’ professional development and beliefs in their own capacity to become a successful teacher include their initial motives for entering teacher education, and the coping strategies they acquire and use for dealing with stressful and challenging situations in their teacher training. Maladaptive coping strategies put them at risk of developing feelings of professional inadequacy, defined as not being able to live up to the expectations of one’s own professional standards (Lindqvist et al., 2017). In the current study, we examined whether different motives for becoming a teacher and various coping strategies were associated with teacher efficacy in a sample of Swedish student teachers.

Social cognitive theory and teacher efficacy

According to social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997), self-efficacy refers to the belief in one’s capacity to successfully organise and execute a particular activity required to produce a desired outcome. In the professional context of teaching, teacher self-efficacy – often termed teacher efficacy – can be understood as ‘individual teachers’ beliefs in their own ability to plan, organize, and carry out activities that are required to attain given educational goals’ (Skaalvik and Skaalvik 2010, 1059). Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) define it as a teacher’s ‘judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated’ (783).

Klassen and Durksen (2014) argue that teacher efficacy provides a protective shield in the face of occupational challenges. We would like to add that despite being a subjective evaluation of one’s own capacity, it is also an indicator of professional teaching competence and successful teaching. For teachers, greater teacher efficacy has been associated with greater student achievement (for meta-analyses, see Kim and Seo 2018; Klassen and Tze 2014), teaching effectiveness (Klassen and Tze 2014), professional commitment (for a meta-analysis, see Chesnut and Burley 2015) and job satisfaction, including less teacher burnout (Saloviita and Pakarinen, 2021; Skaalvik and Skaalvik 2010, 2017). Thus, a high level of teacher efficacy indicates high teacher adjustment and teaching effectiveness. Considering the link with professional competence, successful teaching, student achievement and teaching effectiveness, increasing student teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in working as a teacher seems to be a desirable outcome. Research has, for instance, found that student teachers with high teacher efficacy tend to experience more positive and fewer negative emotions, perform better during their practicum (Chen 2019), display higher career optimism (McLennan, McIlveen, and Perera 2017), have less worrisome teaching concerns and be more likely to create a constructivist learning environment in their future classrooms (Boz and Cetin-Dindar 2021).

According to social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997), the most important influential source of self-efficacy is enactive mastery experiences, because such experiences provide the most authentic evidence of whether one can successfully organise and execute a particular activity that is necessary to produce a desired outcome. Another powerful source is information conveyed by physiological and emotional states, especially in domains or situations that involve coping with stress or emotional challenges (Bandura 1997). Student teachers encounter stress during their teacher training, particularly during their teaching practicum (Chaplain 2008; Dods 2016; Hong 2010; Kokkinos, Stavropoulos, and Davazoglou 2016). It is therefore reasonable to assume that their coping strategies for dealing with distressful situations during their teacher training will affect their teacher efficacy. From a social cognitive theoretical perspective (Bandura 1997), while experiences of adaptive functioning tend to increase self-efficacy, experiences of maladaptive functioning tend to decrease self-efficacy.

The social cognitive theory assumes that individuals’ goals and motives play a significant part in their development of self-efficacy (Bandura 1997). In the field of teacher education, Sinclair, Dowson, and McInerney (2006) argue that student teachers with the ‘right’ motives for becoming teachers will ‘engage deeply in their pre-service preparation and their subsequent professional lives’ (1133). A teacher’s career choice based on personal interest and/or a desire to help others rather than extrinsic motives is expected to promote a deep, persistent and effective engagement in tasks and activities in teacher education and teaching practicum (Sinclair, Dowson, and McInerney 2006), which in turn should lead student teachers to learn teacher knowledge and skills, and to increase their teacher efficacy. Thus, both their motives for becoming a teacher and their coping strategies when dealing with challenging situations during their teacher training should be associated with student teachers’ teacher efficacy.

Motives for becoming a teacher

Student teachers have a mixture of motives for entering teacher education and becoming a teacher (e.g. Bergmark et al. 2018; Frei, Berweger, and Buschor 2017; Meens and Baks 2019; Sarid et al. 2022). Most studies examining student teachers’ motives include three main constructs: altruistic, intrinsic and extrinsic motives (for reviews, see Fray and Gore 2018; Heintz 2015). Altruistic motives refer to seeing teaching as a socially worthwhile and important job, with a desire to help children and adolescents, and to contribute to society. Intrinsic motives refer to the job activity itself, such as enjoyment of teaching children and adolescents, and an interest in teaching subjects. Extrinsic motives refer to aspects of the job that are not inherent in the work itself, such as job security, the status of the profession and salary (Azman 2013; Bastick 2000; Heintz 2015; Jungert, Alm, and Thornberg 2014; Struyven, Jacobs, and Dochy 2013).

Previous research has found that the majority of student teachers are driven by altruistic and intrinsic motives, rather than extrinsic motives, when it comes to their choice of career (Fray and Gore 2018). Chiong, Menzies, and Parameshwaran (2017) have shown that altruistic and intrinsic motives (alongside professional mastery reasons) – in terms of both why they entered and why they remained in their profession – were the most common reasons why teachers stayed in the profession, whereas extrinsic motives were less important. Moreover, Jungert, Alm, and Thornberg (2014) found that altruistic motives were negatively associated with dropout rates mediated by academic engagement, while the associations between intrinsic and extrinsic motives and academic engagement were not significant among student teachers. In addition, intrinsic and altruistic motives for becoming teachers have been positively linked to student teachers’ teacher efficacy (Bilim 2014) and perceptions of their competence to work in schools (Tang, Wong, and Cheng 2016). By contrast, extrinsic motives were found to be unrelated or very weakly related to teacher efficacy (Bilim 2014; Tang, Wong, and Cheng 2016). With reference to social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997), a possible explanation is that intrinsic and altruistic motives make student teachers more deeply engaged in their teacher training (cf. Sinclair, Dowson, and McInerney 2006), resulting in greater learning outcomes and achievement, and thus greater teacher efficacy. We therefore hypothesise that intrinsic and altruistic motives are positively associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers, while extrinsic motives are unrelated to teacher efficacy.

Coping

According to the transactional stress model (Lazarus and Folkman 1984), when individuals encounter what they perceive as a stressful, threatening or challenging situation, they evaluate the situation, how it might affect their wellbeing, and whether they can cope with the situation. Coping refers to ‘constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person’ (Lazarus and Folkman 1984, 141). Coping has two possible functions: (a) targeting the problem (e.g. the perceived stress, threat or challenge associated with the task or demand) in order to solve it, and (b) targeting the emotions (e.g. anxiety, stress, fear, worry, arousal or sadness). Accordingly, a distinction can be made between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping is directed at managing or altering the problem causing the distress, whereas emotion-focused coping is directed at regulating the emotional response to the problem (Lazarus and Folkman 1984).

Tobin et al. (1989) integrate the problem-focused and emotion-focused coping distinction into a hierarchical model of coping (see Table 1). Problem-solving and cognitive restructuring are two problem-focused strategies that are viewed as adaptive. Among the emotion-focused strategies, social support and express emotions are considered to be adaptive. By contrast, maladaptive coping includes the problem-focused strategies of problem avoidance and wishful thinking, and the emotion-focused strategies of self-criticism and social withdrawal. The adaptive strategies are termed engagement, as they refer to coping strategies through which individuals engage in active efforts to manage, change or control the stressful or challenging situation, and to manage emotional responses to the situation in an adaptive way. Maladaptive coping is termed disengagement, and refers to coping strategies in which individuals disengage from the person/environment transaction (also see Tobin 2001).

Table 1. Hierarchical coping model (Tobin, 2001; Tobin et al., 1989).

Adaptive (Engagement)		Maladaptive (Disengagement)
Problem-focused	Emotion-focused	Problem-focused	Emotion-focused
Problem-solving:	Social support:	Problem avoidance:	Self-criticising:
behavioural and cognitive strategies aimed to eliminate the source of stress by changing the stressful situation	seeking emotional support from others	denial of problems and avoidance of thoughts or actions regarding the stressful or challenging situation	criticising and blaming oneself
Cognitive restructuring: cognitive strategies designed to change the meaning of the stressful or challenging situation to make it less threatening such as focusing on the positive aspects or viewing the situation from a new perspective	Express emotions: releasing and expressing feelings	Wishful thinking: fantasising, hoping and wishing that things could be better	Social withdrawal: withdrawing and isolating oneself from others

Despite a continuously growing body of research on teacher coping (e.g. Herman et al. 2020; Oplatka and Iglan 2020; Pogere et al. 2019), less is known about student teachers’ coping. Mundia (2017) found in a small sample of first-year student teachers that self-control and planful problem-solving were positively linked with academic achievement in an introductory course in psychometrics. Gustems-Carnicer, Calderón, and Calderón-Garrido (2019) demonstrated that student teachers’ academic achievement was associated with greater problem-solving and less avoidance. Coping strategies among student teachers have also been examined in relation to psychological problems (Gustems-Carnicer and Calderón 2013) and study-related burnout symptoms (Väisänen et al. 2018). However, whereas previous research has usually examined coping strategies among student teachers in relation to their academic studying situation, less is known about whether their coping strategies in their teaching practicum are associated with their perceived teacher efficacy.

The current study

The aim of the current study was to examine whether different motives for entering teacher education and different coping strategies in distressful situations during teacher training were associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers. Two hypotheses were deduced from the literature. First, and in line with previous studies (Bilim 2014; Tang, Wong, and Cheng 2016), we hypothesised that student teachers’ degrees of both intrinsic and altruistic motives for becoming a teacher would be positively associated with their teacher efficacy, while their extrinsic motives for becoming a teacher would be unrelated to their teacher efficacy. Second, with reference to social cognitive theory (Bandura 1997), the transactional stress model (Lazarus and Folkman 1984) and Tobin et al. (1989) hierarchical model of coping, we hypothesised that adaptive coping strategies would be associated with greater teacher efficacy, while maladaptive coping strategies would be associated with less teacher efficacy

To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine whether different motives for becoming a teacher and the eight different coping strategies were associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers in the same model. In addition to the hypotheses above, and due to the lack of studies in the literature, we formulated the following research question in a more exploratory manner: Which of the four adaptive coping strategies (i.e. problem-solving, cognitive restructuring, social support and express emotions) are positively related to teacher efficacy and which of the four maladaptive coping strategies (i.e. problem avoidance, wishful thinking, self-criticism and social withdrawal) are negatively related to teacher efficacy among student teachers?

Considering that males are underrepresented in teacher education (Heintz, Keane, and Davison 2021), and that both gender and family background have been associated with differences in motives for entering teacher education (Heintz, Keane, and Foley 2017), gender and family background were included as control variables in the current study. Because parental educational level and immigrant vs. non-immigrant background are often used to measure socioeconomic factors (e.g. SCB [Swedish Statistics] 2021; Socialstyrelsen [Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare] 2016) or family background (Skolverket [Swedish National Agency for Education] 2018) in Sweden, where this study was conducted, these two variables were used to measure family background.

Finally, we included a comparison between student teachers in the middle of the teacher training programme and student teachers at the end of the teacher training programme as a control variable. Previous research on possible differences in teacher efficacy between student teachers at different stages of their teacher training is scarce. In their cross-sectional study, Marušić, Jugović, and Lončarić (2017) showed that final-year student teachers scored higher in teacher efficacy than first-year student teachers. In addition, Pfitzner-Eden (2016) found a small increase in teacher efficacy among student teachers in the later part of their teacher training in her longitudinal study. It would therefore be plausible to expect that teacher efficacy would be higher among student teachers at the end of their training than among student teachers in the middle of their training, even though we expect the difference to be small.

Method

Participants

The study included 517 student teachers (74% women) with complete information on the studied variables. Half (50%) were at the end of their education programme, while the other half were in the middle. The majority (88%) had a Swedish ethnic background; 53% of the participants came from non-academic families, while 45% came from academic families (information about parental education level was missing from 2%). The study was given ethical approval by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Stockholm (Dnr 2014/1088–31/5). The participants gave their informed consent and were informed about confidentiality and the right to withdraw their participation at any point in the research process.

Data collection

A questionnaire was distributed to student teachers studying to teach the fourth to sixth grades (students aged 10 to 12; upper elementary school) and the seventh to ninth grades (students aged 13 to 15; lower secondary school) enrolled at ten universities in Sweden. Swedish teacher education for upper elementary school and lower secondary school is eight and nine semesters long, respectively. The educational programme is divided into studies on subjects and courses in educational sciences (e.g. educational psychology, curriculum theory, educational assessment, special education and social psychology of education, including classroom management). Student teachers have 20 weeks of teaching practicum, divided into three or four periods beginning in year one or year two, with the longest period of five to nine weeks at the end of the programme. The web-based questionnaire was first distributed by email to the student teachers, and after three reminders a paper version was sent to student teachers who had not yet responded to the online version. This was to ensure sufficient data. One reason why participants did not respond to the online questionnaire may be cautiousness about clicking links in emails, and we therefore included paper versions to overcome this problem. In total 2,404 student teachers received the questionnaire, and the response rate was 22%.

Measures

Motives for entering teacher education

The Motives for Becoming a Teacher Scale by Jungert, Alm, and Thornberg (2014) was further developed into a 17-item scale in the current study to measure altruistic motives, intrinsic motives and extrinsic motives for entering teacher education (see Appendix). In our revised and expanded version, the scale started with ‘I have chosen to study to become a teacher because … ’, followed by the 17 items. Six items described altruistic motives (Cronbach’s α = .85), four items described intrinsic motives (Cronbach’s α = .86) and seven items described extrinsic motives (Cronbach’s α = .79). The response options for each item were on a six-point scale from 1 = disagree to 6 = agree. For a full view of the scale, see the Appendix. As all our response scales were ordinal, we used diagonal weighted least squares (DWLS) robust estimation to estimate the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models. The CFA supported the three-dimensional solution for our sample (CFA: χ²(116) = 251.974, p < .001, CFI =.972, RMSEA =.046; 90% CI [.04, .05], SRMR =.065).

Teacher efficacy

The Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES) (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy 2001) was translated into Swedish and used to measure teacher efficacy. The 24-item scale covers efficacy for instrumental strategies (eight items, e.g. ‘To what extent can you provide an alternative explanation or example when students are confused?’), efficacy for classroom management (eight items, e.g. ‘How well can you keep a few problem students from ruining an entire lesson?’) and efficacy for student engagement (eight items, e.g. ‘How much can you do to motivate students who show low interest in schoolwork?’). The response rates for each item were on a five-point scale (1 = nothing, 2 = very little, 3 = some influence, 4 = quite a bit and 5 = a great deal; Cronbach’s α = .92). Teacher efficacy was used as a global construct and the unidimensionality of the scale was also confirmed (CFA [DWLS]: χ²(252) = 693.162, p < .001, CFI =.969, RMSEA =.056; 90% CI [.05, .06], SRMR =.073).

Coping strategies in distressful teacher training situations

We used a shortened, adjusted version of the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI) (Tobin 2001; Tobin et al. 1989), translated into Swedish, to measure participants’ coping strategies in distressing situations in their teacher training. The introductory question was changed to ‘Think about situations in your teacher training that you felt were distressing/unpleasant. How did you respond?’ The original CSI consists of 78 items, but was shortened to 24 items in the current study. Each coping strategy consisted of three items. The original items used were: (a) problem-solving: 1, 25, 57 (α = .61), (b) cognitive restructuring: 2, 26, 66 (α = .69), (c) social support: 12, 20, 36 (α = .82), (d) express emotions: 19, 35, 59 (α = .25), (e) problem avoidance: 13, 21, 37 (α = .43), (f) wishful thinking: 22, 30, 46 (α = .69), (g) self-criticism: 15, 31, 71 (α = .72) and (h) social withdrawal: 16, 56, 72 (α = .72). The response rates for each item were on a five-point scale (1 = not at all, 2 = a little, 3 = somewhat, 4 = much and 5 = very much). Even though Cronbach’s alpha was acceptable for most subscales but unacceptably low for two of them (d and e), the CFA (DWLS) supported the eight-dimensional solution for our sample (CFA: χ²(224) = 859.834, p < .001, CFI =.892, RMSEA =.074; 90% CI [.07, .08], SRMR =.081).

Results

Descriptive statistics and correlations

Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) for the total sample, and for males and females, are shown in Table 2, in which t-values and p-values from two-independent t-tests and Cohen’s d-values are also provided. The descriptive statistics revealed that student teachers rated altruistic and intrinsic motives as more influential factors on their career choice than extrinsic motives. The descriptive statistics also showed that seeking social support and problem-solving were the highest rated coping strategies, followed by cognitive restructuring, expressing emotions and wishful thinking. Less rated coping strategies were self-criticising, problem avoidance and social withdrawal.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and gender differences.

Variable	M(SD)	M(SD) males	M(SD) females	t	p	Cohen’s d
Teacher efficacy	3.80(.49)	3.70(.48)	3.84(.49)	2.73	.007	.27
Altruistic motives	5.33(.68)	5.08(.77)	5.42(.62)	5.00	.000	.50
Intrinsic motives	5.12(.83)	4.82(.93)	5.22(.77)	4.93	.000	.49
Extrinsic motives	4.12(.95)	3.92(.98)	4.19(.93)	2.81	.005	.28
Problem-solving	10.10(2.55)	9.92(2.56)	10.17(2.55)	1.02	.310	.10
Cognitive restructer.	9.68(2.56)	9.21(2.56)	9.84(2.54)	2.47	.014	.25
Social support	10.32(3.39)	8.46(3.48)	10.98(3.10)	7.86	.000	.78
Express emotions	8.04(2.20)	7.67(2.48)	8.17(2.09)	2.27	.023	.23
Problem avoidance	6.53(2.31)	6.38(2.53)	6.58(2.23)	.90	.369	.09
Wishful thinking	7.93(3.09)	6.96(2.95)	8.28(3.07)	4.37	.000	.44
Self-criticising	6.67(2.89)	6.42(2.79)	6.75(2.92)	1.16	.247	.12
Social withdrawal	6.52(2.91)	6.98(2.95)	6.35(2.88)	−2.16	.031	−.22

Regarding gender differences, female students scored significantly higher than male students on teacher self-efficacy, all three forms of motives for becoming a teacher, and the coping strategies of cognitive restructuring, social support coping, expressing emotions and wishful thinking, whereas male students scored higher on social withdrawal. We also conducted a set of t-tests on all these variables to examine possible differences between students in the middle of their teacher training and those at the end of their teacher training, but no significant differences were found in any instance.

Table 3 presents the bivariate Pearson correlations between the variables. Teacher efficacy was significantly and positively correlated with all the other three forms of motives for becoming a teacher (but most strongly with intrinsic motives) and with the coping strategies of problem-solving, cognitive restructuring and social support. Teacher efficacy was significantly and negatively correlated with the coping strategies of problem avoidance, wishful thinking, self-criticism and social withdrawal.

Table 3. Correlations among the variables.

	Teacher efficacy	Altruistic	Intrinsic	Extrinsic	PS	CR	SS	EE	PA	WT	SC	SW
Teacher efficacy	–	.31***	.43***	.24***	.15***	.25***	.13**	−.01	−.09*	−.11*	−.17***	−.15**
Altruistic		–	.54***	.39***	.14**	.16***	.21***	−.01	−.10*	.03	.07	−.07
Intrinsic			–	.40***	.12**	.18***	.14**	−.04	−.14**	−.12**	−.12**	−.17***
Extrinsic				–	.12**	.17***	.12**	.04	.07	.05	.05	−.01
PS					–	.66***	.33***	.36***	.05	.18***	.09*	−.02
CR						–	.34***	.36***	.00	.14**	.06	−.03
SS							–	.22***	−.03	.29***	.12**	−.23***
EE								–	.31***	.28***	.18***	.20***
PA									–	.39***	.22***	.43***
WT										–	.53***	.42***
SC											–	.46***
SW												–

PS = problem-solving, CR = cognitive restructuring, SS = social support, EE = express emotions, PA = problem avoidance, WT = wishful thinking, SC = self-criticising, SW = social withdrawal. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Regression models of teacher efficacy

The results from multivariate regression models are shown in Table 4. When the three sociodemographic control variables were included in Model 1, only gender was significantly associated with teacher efficacy (as reflected in the higher score for women than men), but this gender effect disappeared when the other variables were included in all the subsequent models. In Model 2, the comparison between teacher students in the middle and teacher students at the end of their teacher training was added as an additional control variable but was not found to be significantly linked to teacher efficacy. In Model 3, the three motives for becoming a teacher were added. Only intrinsic motives were positively associated with teacher efficacy and remained significant in the final model, but in this case together with altruistic motives. In the final model (Model 4), the eight coping mechanisms were added. As shown, cognitive restructuring was positively associated with teacher efficacy, whereas self-criticism was negatively associated with teacher efficacy. The final model explained 26% of the variance in teacher efficacy.

Table 4. Unstandardised (B) and standardised (β) regression coefficients from multivariate regression models with teacher efficacy as the dependent variable.

	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3		Model 4
	B	β	B	β	B	β	B	β
Gender	.13	.12**	.13	.12**	.02	.02	.02	.01
Background	−.02	−.02	−.02	−.02	−.02	−.02	−.02	−.01
Parental education	−.03	−.03	−.03	−.04	−.02	−.02	−.01	−.01
Mid – End			.05	.05	.07	.07	.07	.08
Altruistic					.07	.09	.07	.10*
Intrinsic					.21	.35***	.17	.29***
Extrinsic					.04	.07	.03	.06
Cope PS							−.00	−.01
Cope CR							.04	.20***
Cope SS							.00	.05
Cope EE							−.01	−.05
Cope PA							.00	.01
Cope WT							−.00	−.03
Cope SC							−.02	−.14**
Cope SW							.00	.01
R^2	.02		.02		.20		.26

Mid – End = comparison between student teachers in the middle of their training and those at the end of their training, PS = problem-solving, CR = cognitive restructuring, SS = social support, EE = express emotions, PA = problem avoidance, WT = wishful thinking, SC = self-criticising, SW = social withdrawal. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Discussion

The current study is the first to examine whether different motives for entering teacher education and different coping strategies in distressful situations during teacher training were associated with teacher efficacy among student teachers in the same model. In the present findings, the student teachers rated altruistic and intrinsic motives higher than extrinsic motives as influential factors on their teacher career choice, which supports prior findings (Fray and Gore 2018). Congruent with our hypothesis and previous studies on teachers (Bilim 2014; Tang, Wong, and Cheng 2016), intrinsic and altruistic motives were associated with greater teacher efficacy among student teachers. In a previous study, intrinsic and altruistic motives were linked to teachers’ proneness to remain in their profession (Chiong, Menzies, and Parameshwaran 2017), and a possible explanation for previous and current findings might be that both types of motives might help student teachers to experience their teacher training as meaningful and make them more committed and engaged to learn, acquire and enact professional teaching skills (cf. Chalofsky and Krishna 2009). In this way, intrinsic and altruistic motives should give student teachers more enactive mastery experiences during their teacher training, and thus increase their teacher efficacy (Bandura 1997). Our findings clearly suggest the importance of intrinsic and altruistic motives for entering teacher education and for student teachers’ teacher efficacy, both in the middle and at the end of their teacher education.

It is also interesting to note that intrinsic motives had a stronger association than altruistic motives with teacher efficacy in the present findings. A possible explanation might be that student teachers with more altruistic motives experience moral dilemmas, challenges, shortcomings and distress in their teaching practicum more often due to naïve and idealistic teaching beliefs that collide with the realities of the classroom and the school (Haritos 2004; Virta 2002).

In the current findings, the student teachers reported that they were more likely to use adaptive (engagement) coping strategies and less likely to use maladaptive (disengagement) coping strategies when facing distressing or unpleasant situations in their teacher training. Three of the four adaptive coping strategies (problem-solving, cognitive restructuring and social support) for dealing with distressful situations in teacher education were positively correlated with teacher efficacy, while all four maladaptive coping strategies (problem avoidance, wishful thinking, self-criticism and social withdrawal) were negatively correlated with teacher efficacy. However, when all coping strategies were included in the same model (and together with the three motives for entering teacher education and the background control variables), only two of the eight coping strategies were significantly related to teacher efficacy. The adaptive problem-focused strategy of cognitive restructuring was associated with greater teacher efficacy, while the maladaptive emotion-focused strategy of self-criticism was associated with lower teacher efficacy.

During teaching practicum, student teachers are temporarily based at a school in a subordinate and more powerless role as an inexperienced learner in relation to mentors, teachers and other school staff (Deng et al. 2018; Lindqvist et al., 2017; Teng 2017). Student teachers’ lack of experience, legitimacy and resources, their sense of dependency on mentors and other teachers, and their marginalised role and limited agency during their teaching practicum might explain why cognitive reconstructing rather than problem-solving was found to be significantly associated with greater teacher efficacy. Lindqvist et al. (2017) reported that student teachers resolved (coped with) their professional inadequacy in terms of powerlessness, limited means for action and uncertainty that they felt during their teaching practicum with either a postponing strategy (i.e. hoping to learn to become a good teacher and part of a supportive teacher community in the future as a beginning teacher rather than during their teacher training) or an accepting strategy (i.e. modifying their professional ideals to better fit with their pre-service teacher situation). Cognitive reconstructing refers to cognitive strategies designed to change the meaning of the stressful or challenging situation to make it less threatening, such as focusing on the positive aspects or viewing the situation from a new perspective (Tobin 2001; Tobin et al. 1989). Our findings suggest that cognitive reconstructing may help student teachers to increase their teacher efficacy, while self-criticism seems to be the coping strategy that is most harmful in terms of their teacher efficacy. Note that student teachers’ worries about their competence and performance during their teaching practicum found in previous studies (Chaplain 2008; Deng et al. 2018; Hong 2010; Kokkinos, Stavropoulos, and Davazoglou 2016; Teng 2017) might be driven by and expanded through self-criticism.

Although the comparison between student teachers in the middle of their training and student teachers at the end of their training was only included as a control variable, its findings could be discussed. In contrast to what we expected, student teachers in their last semester of teacher education did not show higher levels of teacher efficacy than those in the middle of teacher education. We had expected at least a small difference between the two groups in line with Pfitzner-Eden’s (2016) and Marušić, Jugović, and Lončarić (2017) previous results. A possible interpretation for our unexpected finding might be that attending teacher education does not necessarily lead to an increase in teacher efficacy, but because we did not adopt a longitudinal design, we cannot determine whether individual teacher efficacy increases, decreases, or remains at the same level over time. In other words, such a conclusion would only be speculative.

One possible explanation for why the student teachers who were at the end of their training did not score higher than those in the middle of their training could be that worries about incompetence and professional inadequacy might increase in student teachers towards the end of their training when they realise that they must soon leave the ‘safety’ of teacher education and begin their career on their own as novice teachers. Student teachers in the middle of their training might not yet have these concerns. In contrast, a mismatch between self-efficacy and real performance (Bandura 1997) in terms of overrating one’s professional capacity might be easier to maintain in the middle than at the end of training. Furthermore, selection bias and historical effects might help to explain why teacher efficacy did not differ between the ‘middle’ and ‘end’ groups of student teachers. Further research with a longitudinal design is therefore needed to examine and test possible changes and trajectories of teacher efficacy among student teachers over time.

Limitations

Some limitations of this study should be noted. First, the variables have been assessed through self-reporting, which is vulnerable to social desirability, perception and recall biases, careless marking and intentionally exaggerated responses. Self-reported data might also inflate variable associations due to shared method variance. The retrospectively self-reported data on motives for entering teacher education measured in the middle or at the end of teacher education are particularly vulnerable to memory distortion and recall bias, and should be interpreted with great caution.

Second, the cross-sectional design used in the current study means that we could not draw causal conclusions or pinpoint the direction of the identified associations among variables. For example, it is not clear whether coping strategies are predictors of teacher efficacy, or whether teacher efficacy predicts coping strategies. It is also possible that the relationships found in the study are bidirectional or reciprocal. For instance, social cognitive theory assumes an interplay or a reciprocal influence between personal factors, external environment, and behaviour (Bandura 1997). In addition, we compared student teachers in the middle of their training with student teachers at the end of their training regarding levels of teacher efficacy. They were two different groups. We cannot, therefore, derive any conclusion as to whether the level of their teacher efficacy has changed over time. Future research needs to adopt a longitudinal design to examine directionality across variables and predictability and change both within and across variables.

Furthermore, focus has been on student teachers and how their initial motives for becoming a teacher and their coping strategies in dealing with distressful situations during training are associated with their teacher efficacy. We did not examine how various aspects of the teacher education curriculum were linked to their motives, coping strategies, and teacher efficacy. We also did not gather data on student teachers’ practical opportunities in and reflections on their teacher training. Thus, future studies could include more variables to investigate how different parts of teacher education and its curriculum might influence student teachers’ motives, coping strategies, and teacher efficacy. Moreover, qualitative studies, such as ethnographic fieldwork in teacher practicum setting and qualitative interviews with student teachers could contribute with more in-depth insights regarding their learning processes, experiences, and reflections in relation to their motives, coping strategies, and teacher efficacy. Finally, the sample in this study has been recruited from nine universities in Sweden and the participation rate has been low. Taken together, these conditions are, of course, vulnerable to selection bias and limit transferability. Future studies should replicate the current findings in other cultural contexts.

Conclusions and implications

Despite these limitations, the current study has important implications. Supporting student teachers in developing and strengthening altruistic and intrinsic motives to become teachers should be considered a vital component of teacher education, since these motives (especially intrinsic motives) were, according to our findings, positively associated with teacher efficacy. Teacher efficacy, in turn, has been found to be correlated with greater perceptions of preparedness for teaching, professional orientation, teaching commitment and intention to enter teaching after graduation from teacher education (Rots and Aelterman 2009). Among teachers, this relates to teacher effectiveness and student achievement (Kim and Seo 2018; Klassen and Tze 2014).

Altruistic motives are particularly desirable because we want teachers to be ethical, warm, caring and responsive in their interactions and relationships with students (e.g. Campbell 2003; Roorda et al. 2017; Thornberg et al., 2022). Mentors and collaborating teachers in teaching practicums should find ways to help student teachers to maintain altruistic motives, and to adjust their ideals if they are unrealistic, while avoiding inculcating a disengaged and cynical teacher approach. These issues could also be followed up by teacher educators on campus after teaching practicum periods.

Finally, our findings suggest that a significant part of preparing student teachers for teaching practicum and for their upcoming work as beginning teachers is to make them aware of various coping strategies and their functions, as well as to help and teach them to be more able and inclined to use adaptive coping strategies, and to refrain from using maladaptive coping strategies. Problem-solving, cognitive restructuring and social support were positively correlated with teacher efficacy. Problem avoidance, wishful thinking, self-criticism and social withdrawal were negatively correlated with teacher efficacy in the current study. When included in the same model, only cognitive restructuring was associated with greater teacher efficacy, while self-criticism was linked with lower teacher efficacy. Thus, teacher educators on campus and mentors in teaching practicums need to be aware of these coping strategies. They must consider how they can introduce, teach and support student teachers to develop cognitive restructuring and other adaptive coping strategies that fit with teaching practicum and practice. Including a stress management programme in teacher education might help student teachers to increase their teacher efficacy and their use of adaptive coping strategies while reducing the risk of future teacher burnout (cf. Ansley et al. 2021).

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant awarded to Annika Östman Wernerson from The Swedish Research Council [grant number 721-2013-2310].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Vetenskapsrådet [721-2013-2310].

Notes on contributors

Robert Thornberg

Robert Thornberg is Professor of Education at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning at Linköping University in Sweden. His main focuses are on (a) bullying and peer victimization among children and adolescents in school settings, (b) values education, rules, and social interactions in everyday school life, and (c) student teachers’ and medical students’ experiences of and dealing with emotionally challenging situations during their training.

Linda Wänström

Linda Wänström is an Associate Professor at the Division of Statistics and Machine Learning at Linköping University in Sweden. She has a background in statistics and quantitative psychology, and her research focus is both on statistical models and on psychological applications. Her area of interest are intelligence and statistical models for intellectual development, bullying, optimal design of experiments, and selection bias in observational studies.

Henrik Lindqvist

Henrik Lindqvist is an Associate Professor in Education at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning at Linkoping University in Sweden. His research areas are (1) student teachers learning from, and coping with, emotionally challenging situations in teacher education, and (2) special education.

Maria Weurlander

Maria Weurlander is an Associate Professor in Higher Education at the Department of Education at Stockholm University in Sweden. Her main research focuses are on student learning in higher education, and student teachers’ and medical students’ experiences of and dealing with emotionally challenging situations during their training.

Annika Wernerson

Annika Wernerson is Professor of renal- and transplantation science at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology (CLINTEC) at Karolinska Institutet, where she also is Dean of higher education. Her research areas in medical education focus on learning in higher education and medical students’ and student teachers ́ experiences of and dealing with emotionally challenging situations during their training and early professional life.

Appendix.

Table

I have chosen to study to become a teacher because…
		Disagree			Agree
1.	I perceive teaching as exciting and interesting	□	□	□	□	□	□
2.	My friends think I should be a teacher	□	□	□	□	□	□
3.	Teaching will provide me with a good salary	□	□	□	□	□	□
4.	As a teacher I can do something valuable for the society	□	□	□	□	□	□
5.	I think it seems inspiring to work as a teacher	□	□	□	□	□	□
6.	I want to help others	□	□	□	□	□	□
7.	Teaching will provide me with a stable career	□	□	□	□	□	□
8.	Teaching seems to be stimulating and fun	□	□	□	□	□	□
9.	Teaching will provide me with a good social status	□	□	□	□	□	□
10.	My family thinks I should be a teacher	□	□	□	□	□	□
11.	Teachers make a meaningful contribution to society	□	□	□	□	□	□
12.	Teaching will provide me with a reliable income	□	□	□	□	□	□
13	I can make a difference to people as a teacher	□	□	□	□	□	□
14.	As a teacher I can help those who are under- privileged in life	□	□	□	□	□	□
15.	I think I would like teachers’ task assignments	□	□	□	□	□	□
16.	Teaching will be a secure job	□	□	□	□	□	□
17.	As a teacher I can support socially disadvantaged people	□	□	□	□	□	□

Altruistic motives = 4, 6, 11, 13, 14, 17; Intrinsic motives = 1, 5, 8, 15; Extrinsic motives = 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16.