Pre-service teachers' ethical stances on unethical professional behaviors: The roles of professional identity goals and efficacy beliefs

By considering the mediating roles of efficacy beliefs, this study examined whether pre-service teachers' ethical stances on student-related unethical teacher behaviors significantly differed according to the levels of their professional commitment when they received bogus negative feedback for their teaching competencies. Pre-service teachers (n = 128) were assigned to either experimental groups (i.e., high commitment-negative feedback/low commitment-negative feedback) or control groups (i.e., high commitment-no feedback/low commitment-no feedback). The results revealed that pre-service teachers' ethical stances on unethical teacher behaviors significantly differed according to their professional commitment. Notably, this result was significantly explained by the mediating roles of efficacy beliefs.