INVESTIGATING TEACHER IDENTITY AMONG PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS IN CHINESE LOCAL NORMAL UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The study aims to investigate pre-service teachers’ teacher identity in Chinese local normal universities. It employed quantitive research method and utilized the adapted Early Teacher Identity Measure (ETIM) to collected 380 pre-service teachers’ data from local normal university in Shaanxi Province, China. The data was analysed by SPSS v28. Findings reveal a notably high level of teacher identity among these students, though there remains room for further development Moreover, female students exhibit slightly stronger teacher identities compared to their male participants. Freshmen tend to possess higher levels of teacher identity than juniors and seniors, likely influenced by their engagement in educational theory learning, teaching internships, and practical experiences. Furthermore, the teacher identity of students majoring in arts and sports is significantly higher than that of students majoring in humanities and history, and science and engineering. The level of pre-service teachers’ teacher identity will affect their quality of learning, values and perception on teaching and affect the overall development of future education and society. Therefore, developing the teacher identity of pre-service teacher is meaningful for teacher education.