Preservice Teachers' Performance and Confidence in Their Readiness to Teach: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this exploratory study was to compare the performance and confidence of preservice teachers in their readiness to teach, as determined by the edTPA and a candidate survey, respectively. Descriptive analyses of the data reflected higher confidence scores and increased variability within those scores. While this suggests there was more uncertainty in how they perceived their readiness to teach, the confidence exhibited by the candidates at the end of their student teaching experiences generally exceeded how they actually performed on the edTPA. The major implication is that, while it may be good that preservice teachers feel ready and confident to enter the classroom, this may be an overestimation of their performance once the realities of the profession are upon them.