Reflective Culture and Digital Competence in Pre-Service Teacher Development: The Mediating Role of Instructional Smart Self-Efficacy

Teacher education requires models that connect reflective practice and digital competence with the psychological processes through which professional growth occurs. This longitudinal pre-test/post-test quasi-experiment examined whether a composite reflective-digital practice process predicted professional development and whether instructional smart self-efficacy mediated this association. The sample comprised 120 third-year pre-service teachers enrolled in a Computer Science Pedagogy program (N = 120) who completed a 15-week intervention organized across four instructional conditions. Data were collected with an expert-reviewed 19-item questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to assess the measurement and structural models, and indirect effects were evaluated with 5,000 bias-corrected bootstrap resamples. Internal consistency was satisfactory across the four constructs (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86-0.91). Reflective-digital practice was positively associated with professional outcomes (beta = 0.41, p < 0.001), whereas its path to instructional smart self-efficacy (beta = 0.12, p = 0.184) and the direct path from self-efficacy to professional outcomes (beta = 0.10, p = 0.211) were not significant. The bootstrapped indirect estimate was significant (B = 0.09, 95% CI [0.02, 0.17], p = 0.018), and the model explained 54% of the variance in professional outcomes (R² = 0.54). These findings provide preliminary empirical support for a mediated reflective-digital pathway, while the single-program sample and reliance on self-reports limit causal and population-level inference.