Student teachers are prospective teachers in the Chinese educational context. Most of student teachers must spend 3 or 4 years to finish their teacher education, which includes subject major courses, teaching knowledge, and skill courses (1). The education and training student teachers received during university revolves around how to become a qualified teacher. However, most student teachers in China are uncertain about whether they will enter the teaching profession after graduating from university. For instance, Wang and Zhang (2) found that only 47% student teachers chose the teaching profession as their first career choice. One reason may be that student teachers have not yet formed teacher professional identity well-before graduating from college.

Social identity theory (3), a theoretical basis of identity research, indicated that social identity formation in an intergroup context contains four processes: (a) social categorization, (b) the formation of an awareness of social identity, (c) social comparison, and (d) a search for psychological distinctiveness (4). Professional identity, a kind of social identity, refers to having a cogent view of one's stable pattern of career goals, interests, strengths, and potentialities to make positive career-related decisions with greater self-assurance (5, 6). Professional identity is an individual's attitude and sense of devotion to a profession, which is reflected in individual's desire to continue working in the profession and their degree of liking (7). The professional identity of student teachers is the determining factor of motivation toward, satisfaction with and commitment to teaching profession, which is also an important factor for primary and secondary schools to consider when employing teachers (8). Even though the research on developmental course of a student teachers' professional identity is somewhat sparse, research applied social identity theory to teacher professional identity are very rich. For example, recent quantitative studies have explored the first-year college students' (9), and music teachers' (10) professional identity development according to social identity theory. A qualitative study reviewed middle and high school science teachers' identity at the perspective of social identity theory (11). To fill this gap, this study tried to explore student teachers' professional identity by social identity theory.

Unlike Western countries, teachers' social status in China is relatively higher. According to the 2018 Global Teacher Status Index, Chinese teachers' social status ranked seven among the 35 surveyed countries, while the US, France, and UK ranked 18, 14, and 12, respectively (12). In Chinese history, respecting teachers and valuing education is a traditional virtue of Chinese people, which means that the teaching profession is regarded as a highly respected and high-status profession (13). With that in mind, it is rather puzzling that many Chinese student teachers have a low professional identity (14–16). Specifically, 57% of them are not sure whether teachers have a promising career and whether they are suitable to be teachers; 74% are not sure whether they will always be teachers after they graduate; 61% still don't understand the social significance of the teaching profession thoroughly; 53% are not sure whether they are able to be a good teacher (17). Besides, previous studies point out that individuals' low level of professional identity may have links with their mental health status (18). Therefore, it is necessary to identify subgroups of student teachers according to their teacher professional identity, and explore how to promote student teachers' professional identity. By investigating these issues, target training of teacher professional identity among teacher candidates may be possible.

In general, previous studies on teacher professional identity tend to adopt a variable-centered approach (13, 19), which tends to focus individuals' whole level of each dimension and its' relationships with antecedents or outcomes. However, this approach ignores the heterogeneity within each level (20) and hence is unlikely to reflect reality (21). It also assumes that all individuals belong to either a single group or multiple subgroups with known subgroup memberships (e.g., gender), which can't address the concern of whether several subgroups represent different classes (19). Unlike variable-centered approach, a person-centered approach can dress this problem well. According to individuals' response patterns on a set of variables, a person-centered approach can identify emergent subgroups that show the same pattern (i.e., profile) of behavior (22). For this reason, this study adopted person-centered approach (i.e., latent profile analysis) to understand the heterogeneity in student teachers' professional identities.

To date, only one study (23) used traditional person-centered approach (i.e., hierarchical cluster analysis), which found three subgroups of teachers with different identity—characterized as (a) teachers with positive professional identity, (b) teachers with negative professional identity, and (c) uncommitted teachers. Unlike hierarchical cluster analysis, latent profile analysis (LPA) is a new person-centered approach that sorts individuals into groups of subjects who are similar to each other and different from the other groups according to their value indicators (24). Although LPA is similar to hierarchical cluster analysis in terms of its goal, many scholars have pointed out that LPA is more practical and has more power for detecting optimal number of profiles (25). Besides, LPA is more objective and flexible than cluster analysis due to the probabilistic classification (26). Specifically, it classifies heterogeneous groups, estimates all possibilities of individuals belonging to a certain type, performs model fitting with various fit indicators, determines the number of categories based on those indicators, and examines complex relationships among variables (26–28). Student teachers are at the formation stage of teacher professional identity, which make their characteristic psychological states and behavioral patterns may different from in-service teachers. Therefore, we cannot directly apply Karaolis and Philippou's (23) research results to student teachers in college. To fill this gap, we investigated sub-populations of student teachers using LPA. We expected to provide a new perspective on the professional identification theories of student teachers and some suggestions for training student teachers' professional identity.

In recent years, China has continuously reformed in primary and secondary schools. This situation forwards new demands on the ability of teachers, which in turn increased the requirements of student teachers' abilities and accomplishments. Therefore, student teachers experience more anxiety and less psychological wellbeing during university, which lead to serious mental health problems among them (29). Besides, Chinese parents and teachers usually attach great importance to students' academic performance. This situation creates extra psychological burdens on student teachers who don't like their major, which may not only waste social education resources but also threaten student teachers' mental health. To improve student teachers' professional identity effectively, it is necessary to identify teacher professional identity profiles and explore its associations with mental health indicators.

Previous research points out that individuals' mental health status should be assessed by two independent but correlated concepts (i.e., positive mental health and mental disorders) (30, 31). In this view, positive mental health (i.e., mental wellbeing) and mental disorder (i.e., mental health problems, psychopathology or negative wellbeing) are required for complete mental health assessments and should be integrated in one research (31). Besides, there are many studies used psychological wellbeing and anxiety to measure individuals' mental health (32–34). For this reason, this study chose psychological wellbeing (as indicator of positive mental health) and anxiety (as indicator of mental disorder) to measure mental health.

Psychological wellbeing refers to “striving for perfection”—the realization of one's true potential (35)—which suggests that the ability to search for valuable professional opportunities growth likely contributes to profession exploration (36). Studies indicates that individuals' professional identity has a positive relationship with their psychological wellbeing (37–40). Zhou and Xu (41) indicate that university students with higher professional identity may have higher psychological wellbeing. Professional identity may serve as an internal compass for guiding and developing a career in an unpredictable job market and in the absence of proper guidelines for career development (42). As a predominant source of meaning in life (43), professional identity can help individuals produce psychological wellbeing. Therefore, it can be reasonably to hypothesize that a profile with a relatively high professional identity would have a relatively high psychological wellbeing.

In contrast, previous research suggests that student teachers with low professional identity are more likely to experience anxiety during university (44, 45). Whether in China or other countries, almost all student teachers must gain experience through several months of student teaching in primary or secondary schools as part of their college education. When they participate in teaching practice in elementary or middle schools, they often experience anxiety (46). Therefore, we hypothesized that profiles with stronger professional identity would correspond to a weaker state anxiety. Besides, previous research points that gender (47–49) and regional differences (14, 50) may play important roles in the formation of teacher professional identity. Exploring these two factors among student teachers may also help to reveal the formation mechanism of their professional identity.

The aims of this study are 2-fold. First, this study tried to use LPA to identify how many profiles exist among the current sample. Based on the four dimensions of teacher professional identity's independence (24, 51, 52), this study expected to find at least two profiles: (a) low levels in all four dimensions of professional identity and (b) high levels in all four dimensions of professional identity. This study also tried to summarize the response patterns and mindset of each subgroup separately. To test the validity of the profile results, this study also compared the differences in mental health indicators (i.e., psychological wellbeing and state anxiety) across different profiles. Second, this study discussed the relationship between student teacher professional identity and mental health indicators (i.e., psychological wellbeing and anxiety).

The current study answered the following questions:

This study tested the following two specific hypotheses:

As expected, the study revealed the heterogeneity of the current sample in terms of the levels of student teachers' professional identity. By using LPA, this research identified four different profiles (i.e., LPI, MPI, HOV, HPI). The accuracy of the four profiles was supported by the relationships between profile membership (see Table 7). Furthermore, the meaningfulness of the established profiles can be recognized through their relationships with psychological wellbeing and anxiety. Members in LPI profile consistently have a low level of professional identity. Individuals in MPI profile consistently have a moderate level of professional identity. Members in HPI profile consistently have a high level of professional identity. Unlike other three profiles' general disposition, individuals in HOV profile received a higher score in occupational values than other three dimensions.

Unlike Karaolis and Philippou's (23) result of three groups (i.e., positive group, negative group, and uncommitted group), the four groups of this results may indicate that Chinese students' teacher professional characteristics may more complex than Western countries. First, the vast majority of Chinese student teachers (94.9%) have a positive evaluation of teaching profession. This may be because the traditional Chinese culture advocates respecting teachers and valuing education (/zun 1 shi 1 zhong 4 jiao 4/), which leads to Chinese teachers' social status is relatively high. Second, other considerations (e.g., financial guarantee of teachers' income with low unemployment). Noteworthy is that, the sharp increase in unemployment caused by COVID-19 may also verify the advantages of being a teacher.

The result revealed that student teachers in HPI profile having a stronger sense of psychological wellbeing and lower anxiety than other profiles, which implicated that student teachers' professional identity is closely related to their mental health. On the one side, the current study found that student teachers' professional identity has a positive correlation with psychological wellbeing, which is consistent with previous studies (37–40). Specifically, student teachers in HPI profile have a higher psychological wellbeing than individuals in other three profiles. On the other side, the finding demonstrates that student teachers' professional identity has a negative correlation with anxiety, which was basically consistent with previous studies (45, 46). In general, student teachers with a high professional identity have a lower anxiety than individuals in other three profiles. This result indicates that teacher professional identity may play a role in protecting student teachers' mental health. One possible explanation may be that student teachers with high psychological wellbeing tend to possess strong self-efficacy beliefs, which may help them to get academic achievement in school (65), and experience enjoyment regarding their future teaching work (66). Another possible explanation may be that teacher professional identity can help individual establish positive self-schemas involving profession-related events successfully, which make individuals more enthusiastic and engage in academic and teacher-training programs actively (51).

The study revealed that female student teachers' professional identity and psychological wellbeing were significantly higher than male, which was in line with previous studies (14, 53). Female may be more encouraged to work as primary and secondary school teachers by society than their male counterparts (49, 53, 67), which may lead them tend to have a higher teacher professional identity. In addition, professional identity may help individuals produce psychological wellbeing (37, 41). Consequently, female student teachers tend to have a higher psychological wellbeing. Consistent with previous research (68–70), this investigation demonstrated that rural student teachers' anxiety was significantly higher than urban student. The reason may be that urban students are more active, alert, and have more opportunities for getting teaching-related skill (70), which may help them react with stressful situations without being anxious. Besides, compared with rural students' parents, urban students' parents are more educated and can help their children deal with stressful situations (68).

This study has some limitations, which may be addressed through future research. First, the current study only explored the differences in two parameters (i.e., psychological wellbeing and state anxiety) across different latent profiles. However, mental health is a broader concept not only includes psychological wellbeing and anxiety. Future study may consider other predictive constructs of mental health such as subjective wellbeing, trait anxiety or depression. Second, the present study employed a cross-sectional design. Thus, we cannot ascertain causal links between professional identity and wellbeing and anxiety. Future studies should take experimental and longitudinal designs to better explain the causal direction. Finally, this study used self-response measures that can't avoid response bias completely. In addition, the sample we used in this study was entirely Chinese college students, limiting the generalizability of findings across diverse cultures. Future studies should adopt mixed methods to re-test the results.

This study proved that the sample of student teachers was heterogeneous concerning the levels of their professional identity. By using LPA, we identified four different profiles (LPI, MPI, HOV, and HPI). The LPI, MPI and HPI groups had similar scores in all four dimensions, while HOV group had higher scores in occupational values than other three dimensions. Student teachers' professional identity had positive relationships with psychological wellbeing and negative relationships with anxiety. Psychological wellbeing significantly different across the four profiles.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Jiaying University. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.

SZ: conceptualization, investigation, methodology, validation, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, data curation, resources, supervision, and project administration. JL: conceptualization, investigation, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and resources. YD: writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, software, visualization, and resources. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This study was funded by Jiaying University's General Project of Higher Education Teaching Reform (JYJG20190205), Special Moral Education Research Project of the 13th Five-Year Plan for Educational Science of Guangdong Province (2019JKDY014), Educational Science Planning Project of Guangdong (2019GXJK181), Research on the Psychological Mechanism of Hakka Ethnic Group Cognition and Ethnic Identity (21KYK16), and Projects for Humanities and Social Sciences of Jiaying University (2019SKY02).

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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