Constructing Teacher Identity Through Learning: A Grounded Theory Study of Pre-Service Teachers' Competence

This study aims to explore how pre-service teachers conceptualize their professional competence and make sense of their openness to learning through their own written expressions. Adopting a qualitative grounded theory design, data were collected from undergraduate students enrolled in a faculty of education through open-ended written responses obtained on a voluntary basis. The data were analyzed using systematic open, axial, and selective coding procedures. The findings reveal that pre-service teachers do not perceive competence as a fully attainable or static state; instead, they construct it as an ongoing developmental process sustained through openness to learning. Participants primarily defined their competence through communicative, pedagogical, affective, and adaptive dimensions, emphasizing empathy, flexibility, problem-solving, and technology use. Openness to learning was framed as a professional necessity rather than an individual preference and was enacted through self-directed learning, feedback seeking, and reflective practices. Integrating these findings, the study proposes the concept of the teacher-in-development as a core category explaining how competence perceptions and openness to learning interact in the construction of teacher identity. This grounded theory contributes a process-oriented perspective to the literature on teacher competence, teacher identity, and teacher education by highlighting learning as a central mechanism sustaining professional development during pre-service education.