Conference Agenda

Teacher shortages represent a growing challenge for education systems worldwide, raising concerns about the sustainability and quality of teaching (UNESCO, 2024). In Europe and internationally, Initial Teacher Education (ITE) has been identified as a key mechanism for strengthening teacher preparedness, resilience, and long-term retention in the profession. Within ITE, practicum experiences play a central role by providing preservice teachers with authentic opportunities to engage in classroom practice. However, these experiences also expose them to institutional complexities and professional demands that often generate the well-documented “reality shock” (Veenman, 1984). In this context, Teacher Self-Efficacy (TSE) emerges as a critical psychological resource supporting motivation, professional learning, and persistence.

Extensive international research demonstrates that TSE is a strong predictor of instructional quality, commitment to teaching, and career continuity (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001; Klassen & Chiu, 2011). Importantly, TSE is particularly malleable during ITE, making practicum a crucial period for its development (Klassen & Durksen, 2014). However, empirical findings across countries remain mixed: some studies report increases in TSE following practicum, others show stability, and some document declines. These inconsistencies suggest that practicum alone does not guarantee positive self-efficacy development and that contextual and relational factors -particularly mentorship- play a decisive role.

Mentorship is widely recognised in European and international teacher education literature as a key support mechanism during practicum (Orland-Barak, 2005, 2014). In many ITE systems, preservice teachers are guided by a mentoring triad composed of the preservice teacher, a Cooperating Teacher (CT), and a University Supervisor (US). While both mentors contribute to professional learning, research has tended to focus more heavily on CTs, with comparatively less attention paid to the role of USs and to how both mentors jointly influence TSE. Moreover, most empirical evidence originates from Europe, North America, and Australia, leaving Latin American contexts underrepresented in the international literature.

Addressing this gap, the present study investigates the following research question: How do the mentorship practices of Cooperating Teachers and University Supervisors relate to preservice teachers’ self-efficacy after the final practicum, considering sociodemographic characteristics and key sources of self-efficacy? By focusing on Chilean preservice teachers, this study contributes a Global South perspective to an internationally relevant discussion on mentorship quality and teacher retention, offering comparative insights that complement and extend European research on ITE.

The theoretical framework of the study is grounded in Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986), which conceptualises self-efficacy as beliefs formed through the dynamic interaction of personal, behavioural, and environmental factors. Within this framework, self-efficacy develops through four primary sources: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological and affective states. In ITE contexts, mastery experiences are often limited due to preservice teachers’ novice status, increasing the importance of vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion, both of which are closely linked to mentorship practices.

This study adopts the definition of TSE proposed by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001), which conceptualises it as teachers’ judgments of their capability to promote student engagement and learning, even under challenging conditions. To operationalise mentorship quality, the study draws on Hudson’s Five-Factor Mentorship Model (2004), which identifies personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modeling, and feedback as core dimensions of effective mentoring. This model has been empirically validated across diverse international contexts and provides a robust framework for analysing mentor competencies.

By integrating Bandura’s sources of self-efficacy with Hudson’s mentorship framework, this study offers a theoretically coherent and internationally relevant approach to understanding how distinct yet complementary mentoring roles shape preservice teachers’ self-efficacy during practicum. In doing so, it responds to European and global priorities in ITE research concerning mentorship quality, professional learning, and teacher retention.

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 explores how three mentor teachers in Israeli high schools reversed the direction of teacher training models, shifting from a top-down policy-driven approach to a bottom-up, teacher-led process. The common denominator among the three models is the reversal of the training direction: beginning with institutional policy and culminating in mentor teachers leading the process, designing it according to their professional worldview and the characteristics of the school population (Vantage TSH, 2023; Cordova, 2025). Monitoring this reversal reveals it as the main factor in the success of the training process, which started top-down and became bottom-up (Kavanagh et al., 2023; Kuhn et al., 2022).

The reversal of the model manifested itself in changes on three levels: student-teacher, social-emotional, and innovative teaching. On the student-teacher level, there was a shift in how student-teachers were treated: from observers and trainees to partners in teaching. On the social-emotional level, principles of social-emotional learning (SEL) were incorporated into teacher training (Teacher academy EU, 2025; UK Department of Education, 2025). On the innovative teaching level, there was a pedagogical-organizational change, reflected in new teaching methods, a focus on the digital space, and regular changes in school learning routines (Sasson et al., 2022; Simon and Nissim, 2023).

The study’s main contribution is in revealing a significant characteristic of the mentor teacher—the ability to lead a change in the direction of existing teacher training models, adapting them to the school’s and student population’s characteristics and the learning skills of the 21st century. This reversal is key to cultivating professional practices for the learning and development of new teachers, as it enables mentor teachers to design training models that are context-sensitive, responsive, and innovative (Heinz, 2025; Ellis et al., 2020).

The research is guided by three main questions: (1) What is the nature of the change that occurred in the mentor teachers’ practices and perceptions, and what needs prompted it? (2) How was the change led, who were the partners in creating and initiating it in the school, and what challenges did the mentor teachers face in implementing the process? (3) How does this reversal of the training model contribute to cultivating professional practices for the learning and development of new teachers?

The conceptual framework draws on theories of pedagogical and organizational change, mentor teacher agency, and the cultivation of professional practices in teacher education. The study demonstrates that mentor teachers play a crucial role in shaping the professional learning environments in which new teachers develop, and that their ability to reverse the direction of training models is essential for fostering the growth and resilience of new teachers in complex educational environments.