Impact of early career teachers' professional identity tensions

Abstract This study gains insight into impact of professional identity tensions in terms of affective appraisal and behavioral response. Data consisted of 126 semi-structured reflective journals from early career teachers collected during one school year. Affective appraisals were ‘low’ (no impact on daily functioning, short occurrence), ‘moderate’ (reasonable impact for a couple of days) or ‘high’ (negative impact on work and private life, leading to personal doubts, long occurrence). Behavioral responses occurred as reflection, help seeking, support seeking, and directive actions. High affective appraisals occurred often in combination with reflection, while low and moderate affective appraisals often occurred with directive actions. This study concludes that impact is multidimensional and therefore, all tensions can be of significant importance for teacher induction programs.