A Person-Centered Approach to Emotional Competencies in Pre-service Teachers: Associations with Stress, Anxiety, and Emotional Exhaustion during Practicum

Intrapersonal emotional competencies (ECs) are the abilities to identify, understand, express, regulate, and use intrapersonal emotions. Previous studies found that ECs were protective factors against stress and burnout among teachers. However, little is known on the impact of ECs on preservice teachers’ stress, anxiety and exhaustion during practicum. Furthermore, most of the studies investigating ECs are variable-oriented although the person-oriented approach is now promoted. Latent Profile Analysis were performed to identify ECs profiles. 326 preservice teachers filled out questionnaires on ECs (Profile of Emotional Competence), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale), anxiety (Hospital Anxiety & Depression scale), and emotional exhaustion (Maslach Burnout Inventory). Four profiles of ECs were identified. The first profile was characterized by low emotion regulation. The second was characterized by low understanding of emotions, but high emotion regulation. The third profile showed low emotion identification. The fourth profile was characterized by high scores in the five ECs. The first and second profiles predicted higher stress and anxiety, while the fourth one was the most adaptive. No significant differences were found for exhaustion. Findings provide validity to the existence of multiple profiles among preservice teachers. These results highlight the necessity to develop ECs during the initial training