The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the development of self-efficacy and teaching stress of a group of Iranian pre-service teachers of English during and after a reflective teaching practicum. Participants of the current study were 123 pre-service Iranian EFL teachers who attended a two-month reflective teaching practicum. The participant teachers completed three self-efficacy and teaching stress surveys during both their two-month practicum period and over a course of four month after the practicum. The main purpose of the study was to investigate the patterns of self-efficacy and teaching stress during and after the formation of new teachers based on the reflective teaching principles. Latent growth modelling analysis was employed in the current study which revealed a pattern of significantly increasing self-efficacy and significantly decreasing teaching stress. However, further analysis indicated that the trajectories were independent of each other. Overall, this study provides strong empirical evidence in favor of reflective practicum in enhancing pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy and teaching stress. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.
