Abstract
Teacher candidate stress is a significant issue for candidates, students, mentor teachers, and theInstitute of Higher Education (IHE) representatives who work with the candidates. Stress during thisimportant stage in a new teacher’s career can be detrimental in many ways from causing early burnout(Greer & Greer, 1992; Schwab, 1989) to attrition (Brownell, 1997) and absenteeism. "It is duringstudent teaching that preservice teachers begin to learn the habits of the profession and begin todevelop adaptive or maladaptive coping skills for dealing with the stress of teaching" (Gold, 1985;Greer & Greer, 1992 as cited in Fives, Hamman, Olivarez, 2007, p. 918). Although the literature,especially within the past ten years, is scant there are scholars (Clement, 1999; Corcoran, 1989;Hemmings & Hockley, 2002; Hunter-Boykin & Thompson, 1993; Pigge & Marso, 1998; Schwab, 1989;Wadlington, Slaton & Partridge, 1998) who examined stress among teacher candidates during the fieldexperience and find it to be a significant issue. There is agreement that stress levels are generally highduring student teaching. In a seven-year study Pigge & Marso found that teacher candidate anxietydecreases as they progress through the teacher preparation program. This is further supported byFives, Hamman & Olivarez who maintain that teacher candidates, who experience what the authors callhigh guidance as indicated by levels of support from the IHE, demonstrated lower levels of burnout atthe end of their practicum than candidates with low guidance.
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