Enhancing pre-service teachers' well-being during long-term internships: The roles of self-efficacy, mentoring, and task-related sense of coherence

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This study investigates the protective influence of different resources on the occupational well-being of pre-service teachers during their long-term internship. This research grounded in the theoretical framework of the JD-R model seeks to comprehend how internal resources such as self-efficacy and task-related sense of coherence (SoC) in pre-service teachers along with external resources such as different mentoring styles can foster engagement and mitigate emotional exhaustion. This study introduces the task-related SoC as a novel internal resource in the context of long-term internships to determine its value alongside other resources. The study used a sample of 213 pre-service teachers who answered self-questionnaires at the beginning and end of their four-month-long internship. Structural equation modeling explored the relationships between self-efficacy beliefs, task-related SoC, mentoring approaches, engagement and emotional exhaustion. Results indicate that self-efficacy and task-related SoC significantly predict pre-service teachers’ occupational well-being. Among mentoring approaches, emotional mentoring emerged as the most influential in fostering well-being. The findings confirm the health-promoting effects of self-efficacy and emotional mentoring. This is the first study to apply the general construct of a sense of coherence to the specific context of a long-term internship. It demonstrates that strengthening pre-service teachers’ SoC about particular tasks can be an additional resource for mental health promotion during this period. The results suggest that supporting pre-service teachers in perceiving their internship activities as comprehensible, meaningful and manageable can be beneficial and should be externally promoted by the university.
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Education and Practice
Volume13
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)566-586
Number of pages21
ISSN2311-6897
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 07.02.2025

DOI