Around the globe, schools are facing growing teacher shortages (Ingersoll & Tran, 2023). Approximately 40% of teachers in the European Union will retire within the next few years, opening up numerous vacancies for qualified teaching staff that will urgently need to be filled (European Commission, 2015). To meet the need for teachers capable of providing high-quality instruction, schools are increasingly turning to student teachers—that is, teacher candidates who have not yet completed their teacher training programs and are not yet licensed—as part-time in-service teachers (Scheidig & Holmeier, 2022).

The multitude of demands inherent to the teaching profession—from dealing with classroom disruptions, inadequate teaching materials, and heterogeneous student populations to navigating relationships with parents and accomplishing administrative tasks—can be challenging for teachers and especially for student teachers (Brevik et al., 2018). In this respect, the phase of learning school practices can be considered decisive for the individual teaching career. During this phase, (novice) teachers may experience failures due to challenging situations in the classroom that can lead to decreased job satisfaction and a higher intention to leave the profession (Admiraal & Kittelsen Røberg, 2023).

According to the Job Demands-Ressources model, the challenges of the teaching profession, such as classroom disruptions, represent demands that are inherent to the job context (Hakanen et al., 2006). Job demands are positively associated with higher emotional exhaustion, job-related anxiety, and health complaints in teachers (see Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). The more demanding teachers perceive their workload to be, the more they need mental and physical resources to cope with these demands. These resources can be differentiated in job-related resources (e.g., social support from colleagues) and personal resources (e.g., high self-efficacy beliefs; Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). Job-related resources refer to “psychological or material resources that are provided to a focal individual by partners in some form of social relationship” and include social support from peers and colleagues (Jolly et al., 2021, p. 229). In this regard, mentor teachers play a crucial role in providing social support to novice teachers, who usually lack professional skills to cope with stressors (Richter et al., 2013). Personal resources, however, include individual self-efficacy beliefs (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). Teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy feel more confident in their ability to deal with challenging situations in the classroom, which may protect them from feeling overwhelmed by the high demands of the teaching profession (Klassen & Durksen, 2014).

To date, there has been no empirical research on the activities that student teachers carry out in schools. In particular, there is no evidence on how student teachers perceive the demands of their job, whether they receive social support from colleagues, or how they rate their self-efficacy beliefs. For this reason, the present study investigated the instructional activities of student teachers in schools and the relationship between instructional activities and work-related stress. Moreover, we examined the moderating effect of social support from colleagues and student teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in this relationship drawing on theoretical rationales from the JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017):

RQ1: Can student teachers be grouped according to their instructional activities in school?

RQ2: How do student teachers assess their social support, self-efficacy, and work-related stress?

RQ3: What is the relationship between student teachers’ instructional activities in schools and their work-related stress? Do self-efficacy and social support moderate this relationship?

We collected cross-sectional data from 172 student teachers—that is, teacher candidates who were currently employed part-time in a school—through an online-based survey. Among them, 54% were undergraduates and 44% were enrolled in a master’s teacher training program. Fifty-seven percent of student teachers were enrolled in a teacher training program to teach at the primary level, and 43% were enrolled in a program to teach at the secondary level. For RQ1, we assessed instructional activities using five items of increasing complexity, rated dichotomously (0 = No, 1 = Yes): "I tutor individual students," "I co-teach classes with other teachers," "I occasionally cover for other teachers," "I teach classes on my own," and "I am a homeroom or class teacher on my own." To answer RQ2, we asked student teachers to report on the work-related stress they experienced as a result of their job demands (i.e., instructional activities; Böhm-Kasper et al., 2000): “I often feel exhausted and stressed because of my professional tasks”. We further asked student teachers to report on the social support they receive from their colleagues in school (Schulz & Schwarzer, 2003): “My colleagues offer me help when I’m in need”. Moreover, we used three items to measure student teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs (Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1999): “I am sure that I can help students with severe difficulties when I try”. All items were rated on a four-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). RQ1 analysis involved latent class analyses (LCA) with increasing class numbers to identify latent groups based on instructional activities. LCA assigns probability estimates indicating group membership likelihood (Weller et al., 2020). For RQ2, we computed descriptive statistics and scale means, conducting a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to compare latent groups on social support, self-efficacy, and work-related stress. With regard to RQ3, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the association between student teachers’ instructional activities and their work-related stress. To this end, we modelled a latent factor for student teachers’ work-related stress, which we regressed on the manifest variable for group affiliation based on the results from LCA. We conducted a moderation analysis to investigate the interaction of social support and student teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs with this relationship.

Results from LCA revealed three groups (RQ1): In Group 1, student teachers tutored individual students, co-taught, and covered for colleagues but didn't teach independently or have sole class responsibility. Group 2 focused on independent teaching. Group 3 engaged in various activities, including covering for colleagues, independent teaching, occasional tutoring, co-teaching, and holding sole class responsibility. In RQ2, all student teacher groups reported moderate to high levels of work-related stress (2.08 < M < 2.74) and self-efficacy (2.93 < M < 3.16), along with high social support (3.28 < M < 3.42). There is a significant difference in work-related stress among latent groups (F(6/306) = 4.17, p < .001, η² = .08), indicating that those in Groups 2 and 3, engaged in more complex instructional activities, reported higher stress levels. With regard to RQ3, our results suggest that student teachers who mainly taught classes on their own (Group 2: β = .30, p < .001) or carried out a variety of instructional activities in their school (Group 3: β = .35, p < .001) experienced higher work-related stress. We found for both groups that social support from colleagues appears to be a factor that contributed to lower levels of work-related stress (Group 2: β = -.19; Group 3: β = -.24). The results of this study should be interpreted, however, in light of its methodological limitations, such as the cross-sectional study design. Yet, our study contributes to filling a gap in the empirical literature by offering a better understanding of what instructional activities student teachers carry out in schools, how they perceive the field experiences they have sought out for themselves, and how well their needs for professional well-being are being met.

Admiraal, W., & Kittelsen Røberg, K.-I. (2023). Teachers’ job demands, resources and their job satisfaction: Satisfaction with school, career choice and teaching profession of teachers in different career stages. Teaching and Teacher Education, 125, 104063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2023.104063 Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2017). Job demands-resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000056 Böhm-Kasper, O., Bos, W., Jaeckel, S., & Weishaupt, H. (2000). EBI. Das Erfurter Belastungsinventar zur Erfassung von Belastung und Beanspruchung von Lehrern und Schülern am Gymnasium. In H. Merkens & H. Weishaupt (Eds.). Schulforschung und Schulentwicklung. Aktuelle Forschungsbeiträge. Erfurter Studien zur Entwicklung des Bildungswesens (p. 35–66). University of Erfurt. Brevik, L. M., Gunnulfsen, A. E., & Renzulli, J. S. (2018). Student teachers’ practice and experience with differentiated instruction for students with higher learning potential. Teaching and Teacher Education, 71, 34–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.12.003 European Commission. (2015). The Teaching Profession in Europe: Practices, Perceptions, and Policies. Eurydice Report. Publications Office of the European Union. Hakanen, J. J., Bakker, A. B., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2006). Burnout and work engagement among teachers. Journal of School Psychology, 43(6), 495–513. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2005.11.001 Hanushek, E. A., Kain, J. F., & Rivkin, S. G. (2004). Why Public Schools Lose Teachers. The Journal of Human Resources, 39(2), 326–354. https://doi.org/10.2307/3559017 Jolly, P. M., Kong, D. T., & Kim, K. Y. (2021). Social support at work: An integrative review. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42, 229–251. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2485 Klassen, R. M., & Durksen, T. L. (2014). Weekly self-efficacy and work stress during the teaching practicum: A mixed methods study. Learning and Instruction, 33, 158–169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2014.05.003 Richter, D., Kunter, M., Lüdtke, O., Klusmann, U., Anders, Y., & Baumert, J. (2013). How different mentoring approaches affect beginning teachers’ development in the first years of practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 36, 166–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2013.07.012 Scheidig, F., & Holmeier, M. (2022). Unterrichten neben dem Studium – Implikationen für das Studium und Einfluss auf das Verlangen nach hochschulischen Praxisbezügen. Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung, (12), 479–496. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35834-022-00349-3 Schulz, U., & Schwarzer, R. (2003). Soziale Unterstützung bei der Krankheitsbewältigung: Die Berliner Social Support Skalen (BSSS). Diagnostica, 49(2), 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1026//0012-1924.49.2.73 Schwarzer, R. & Jerusalem, M. (Eds.) (1999). Skalen zur Erfassung von Lehrer- und Schülermerkamlen. Free Univeristy Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin. Weller, B. E., Bowen, N. K., & Faubert, S. J. (2020). Latent Class Analysis: A Guide to Best Practice. Journal of Black Psychology, 46(4), 287–311. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095798420930932