Beliefs about teaching: Persistent or malleable? A longitudinal study of prospective student teachers' beliefs

• Results on the teachers' knowledge-base measure and metaphors align to some extent.
• Beliefs as measured on the knowledge-base instrument tended to remain unchanged.
• When beliefs changed, metaphors tended to express expanded views of teaching.
• Students entering teacher education scored higher on “Pedagogue” than others.
• Teacher as didactics expert negatively predicted entrance to teacher education.

This longitudinal study focused on change in university students' beliefs about the role of teachers. The students (n = 80) were Estonian undergraduates, whose beliefs were investigated in the first and third years of their studies and followed up to the point at which the students either entered teacher education or chose other paths. Beliefs about teaching were neither unambiguously persistent nor malleable. Students who continued in teacher education exhibited stronger beliefs about the teacher as pedagogue and aligned less with the belief that the teacher's role is to be a subject matter expert than peers who did not choose teacher education.