A review of research on student teachers' professional identity

This article presents a review of 29 empirical studies to identify the main foci of research on student teachers' identity, the methodologies used and their major findings. The reviewed studies were found to investigate four broad factors: the contribution of: (1) reflective activities, (2) learning communities, (3) context and (4) (prior) experiences. Reflective practices and interviews were found to be mainly used by researchers as data collection tools and the findings were mainly reported to be changes in components of student teachers' identity, including their cognitive knowledge, sense of agency and voice. Questions raised in this review and suggestions for further research are discussed.