Personal and contextual perspectives on trainee teacher development: Insights from a quantitative longitudinal study

Teacher training is a demanding phase of professionalization in which personal and contextual factors jointly shape trainee teachers’ experiences and development. This talk draws on a longitudinal study of a full cohort (N = 86) of German vocational trainee teachers across their 18-month in-service training period. Combining seven quarterly assessments (a total of 452 observations) with 58 weekly measurements (a total of 1,870 observations), the study captures both longer-term developmental patterns and short-term dynamics within individuals. We use selected examples from our research to illustrate how different analytical approaches – including multilevel models, cross-lagged panel models, and vector autoregressive models – provide complementary insights into the interplay between personal and contextual factors and work-related experiences. Across different time scales, the findings indicate that personal factors, contextual conditions, and trainee teachers’ experiences are systematically intertwined: relational experiences moderate associations between self-related perceptions and perceived stressors, contextual conditions predict subsequent changes in personal regulation, and weekly dynamics reveal interdependent links between person, context, and experience. Rather than focusing on individual constructs or methods in isolation, the talk highlights how different temporal resolutions and analytical perspectives can contribute to understanding professional development as a process embedded in both time and context.

Teams link: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/391603224522308?p=sx1QMVQPndBvL18MTZ