UNESCO's 2024 Global Reports on Teachers and on Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) estimates that the world could face shortages of at least 6 million pre-primary education teachers to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) by 2030. The report identifies six priority actions, including the importance of teacher professional development as a lifelong pursuit that includes collaboration between teaching workers to co-design their professional development (UNESCO, 2024). Addressing these workforce challenges requires not only supporting practicing teachers but also ensuring high-quality initial teacher education (ITE) experiences that attract and retain new educators in the profession. Positive practicum experiences significantly influence career choice in the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector (Nolan & Rouse, 2013), making effective mentoring during ITE placements critical for workforce sustainability.

While mentoring conversations are widely recognised as important for professional growth of prospective teachers (Rachamim & Orland-Barak, 2018; Goldshaft & Sjølie, 2024), the current understanding of what enables effective feedback within these conversations in ECEC, and how such practices can be sustained in everyday practice, remains limited (Moloney & Pope, 2023). The provision of effective feedback within mentoring conversations is particularly crucial during ITE practicum placements, where pre-service teachers form their professional identities and make career decisions.

The Early Childhood Professional Practice Partnership (ECPPP) (Victorian Department of Education, 2020-24) investigated, within a co-design approach, strengths and challenges of early childhood mentor teachers' and pre-service teachers' practicum experience, with a view to developing mentor teacher training modules (Nicolas et al., 2025). The ECPPP research confirmed international findings, showing that engaging in the provision of effective feedback within mentoring conversations was a significant challenge experienced by all mentor teachers and pre-service teachers interviewed within the Australian early childhood education ITE context.

The ECPPP team developed and implemented feedback literacy training modules to enhance mentor teachers' capacity to support pre-service teacher professional growth. Across a one-day professional development session, participants were introduced to principles of feedback literacy (Carless & Boud, 2018) and presented with the GROW coaching model (Whitmore, 2010). They were then provided with a Mentoring Observation Tool (MOT) and invited to apply the tool to a video exemplar of teaching practice in an early childhood education context. The MOT, developed by the research team for the purpose of the study, is designed to provide effective, evidence-based and non-judgmental feedback (Windsor et al., 2022), with a particular focus on high-quality interactions in the early childhood education context. After having been piloted successfully with the initial research participants, the feedback literacy training program was delivered to over 240 early childhood education professionals between 2022 and 2024.

This paper presents findings from the post-ECPPP study completed in 2025 to evaluate the impact of the feedback literacy training program on mentor teacher capacity and self-efficacy. This evaluation is critical given the limited research on mentor training in the ECEC ITE context and addresses the urgent need to support the next generation of early childhood educators entering the profession. The research examines whether the training provided effective strategies and tools to enhance mentors' feedback practices, answering the research question:

How does the ECPPP feedback literacy module improve early childhood teachers' sense of self-efficacy and build their mentoring capacity in the context of initial teacher education practicum?

This study employs a mixed methods sequential explanatory design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2017) to evaluate the self-reported effectiveness of the ECPPP feedback literacy training module in building mentor teacher capacity and self-efficacy. This approach prioritizes quantitative survey data in the initial phase, followed by qualitative interview data to provide deeper explanation and contextual understanding of practitioners' experiences of the training program. Participants included mentor teachers, centre directors, and early childhood educators from Victorian early childhood centres and sessional kindergartens who attended ECPPP mentoring training between 2022 and 2024. From 240 trained professionals, 10 completed the survey and 4 participated in follow-up interviews. The in-depth interview data enabled meaningful exploration of participants' perspectives, revealing both the positive impact of the training and persistent challenges in mentor teacher feedback practices. Data collection occurred in two phases. First, participants completed a brief online survey evaluating the usefulness of the feedback literacy and mentoring observation tool training for their practice. The survey provided initial evaluation of teachers' self-reported impact on their mentoring practice through both closed and open-ended questions. Second, semi-structured online interviews. Statistical analysis was applied to quantitative survey data using descriptive statistics to measure central tendency and distribution of Likert-scale responses (Sullivan & Artino, 2013). Qualitative data from interview transcripts and open-ended survey responses were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021), employing an iterative process of familiarisation, systematic coding, and theme development to identify patterns of shared meaning across participant accounts.

This research provides unique insights into the perceived effectiveness of feedback literacy training as reported by practitioners themselves. Quantitative findings revealed unanimous positive responses, with 100% of respondents agreeing the training enhanced their understanding of question-based support strategies, non-judgmental and evidence-based feedback approaches, and built confidence for difficult conversations (mean scores 4.67-4.78/5). Qualitative analysis identified two key themes: overall training impact and the transformative effect of the MOT. The findings reveal that targeted professional development can validate existing practices, raise awareness of feedback's critical role in pre-service teacher professional growth, and provide practical frameworks that enhance mentoring capacity during the crucial ITE phase. Participants reported increased capacity to provide more specific and intentional feedback, while challenges included language barriers with international students and the complexity of the MOT wording. The Australian findings offer a transferable model with potential to significantly transform mentoring practice globally by improving mentors' dialogic skills, non-judgmental observation, and capacity for collegial dialogue—competencies essential for nurturing the next generation of early childhood educators. In the context of the poly-crisis affecting education systems worldwide—including acute teacher shortages and workforce sustainability challenges—this research responds to the urgent need for evidence-based mentor preparation to support pre-service teachers entering the profession. High-quality feedback during practicum placements is fundamental to developing confident, competent beginning teachers who will sustain the early childhood education workforce. The practical strategies emerging from this research recognize that effective mentoring relationships, grounded in evidence-based feedback practices, are critical not only for individual pre-service teacher development but also for broader workforce retention and quality. This approach to knowledge production and application demonstrates education research's capacity to address both globally shared and locally specific manifestations of workforce challenges.

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