Investigating the Stress Levels of Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Pre-service Teachers during Teaching Practicum

This study investigated stress levels of pre-service teachers (PSTs) across three categories of teaching context: early childhood, primary and secondary. This paper focused on exploring the stressors in the completion of tasks in teaching practicum in the three categories of teaching context and an awareness of and access to support systems. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and an online questionnaire were used to measure the nature and level of stress. Significant results were found in relation to the school climate and the stress levels of PSTs across the three different teaching contexts. These findings have implications in terms of understanding different PSTs’ stress levels across the three teaching contexts and ways they could be supported to reduce their stress level and achieve better study outcomes.