The following aspects of professional competence are investigated:
Knowledge: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, generic pedagogical knowledge, diagnostic knowledge and skills,
Personality factors: professional values and ethics, subjective theories of teaching and learning, self-efficacy beliefs, intrinsic motivation, goal orientations, willingness to cooperate, response to stress, regulation of psychological resources,
Situation-dependent motivational and emotional experience: experience of job satisfaction and fulfillment; stress, strain, and anxiety.
Teacher candidates preparing to teach mathematics at lower secondary level form the primary target group. In addition, there is a smaller sample of prospective elementary school teachers specializing in German.
The study addresses three main research questions:
Which skills and competencies do teacher candidates possess at the beginning of their 2-year teaching practice?
How do their abilities, knowledge, beliefs, and emotional and motivational skills develop during this second phase of teacher training?
How do individual and institutional factors impact the positive or negative development of competencies? To what extent are developmental trajectories the results of selective access to the teaching profession? How do different learning opportunities during teaching practice affect the acquisition of competencies?