Well-being of pre-service teachers: A construct validation study across three countries

Teacher well-being is becoming increasingly important in research and in education policy. However, studies that investigate the well-being of pre-service teachers empirically are still scarce and tend to use instruments that assess general well-being or focus only on negative aspects such as stress and strain. Therefore, this study tests the psychometric properties of the pre-service teacher well-being questionnaire. The questionnaire draws on research in well-being psychology and aims to capture pre-service teacher well-being as a multidimensional and context-specific construct. The underlying model consists of three positive dimensions, (1) positive attitudes towards initial teacher education, (2) enjoyment of initial teacher education, and (3) positive academic self-concept regarding initial teacher education, and three negative dimensions, (4) worries about initial teacher education, (5) physical complaints related to initial teacher education, and (6) social problems in initial teacher education. Evidence presented in this study is based on an online survey that pre-service teachers for primary and secondary school from Switzerland (n = 989; primary education: 76.8 %), Germany (n = 563; primary education: 16.3 %), and Austria (n = 197; primary education: 76.6 %) completed in spring 2022. Results confirmed the factor structure and the reliability of the instrument for all but one factor, and there is evidence for correspondence with other well-being constructs. Furthermore, partial measurement invariance was established between the three countries' subsamples. These findings support the use of the instrument for assessing pre-service teacher well-being. Directions for future research and implications for initial teacher education institutions are discussed.