Abstract

• This study aimed to investigate mindfulness, self-compassion and adjustment of student teachers. The participants of the study consisted of 1090 (520 males and 570 females) first year student teachers at two Universities of Education and nine Education Degree Colleges. The instruments were Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al, 2006); Self-compassion Scale (Neff, 2003) and College Adjustment Questionnaire (Shirley& Rosen, 2010). The results showed that the student teachers had a high attention in observing, attending to various stimuli including internal and external phenomena. However, they were weak in tapping one’s nonjudgmental attitude of one’s inner experiences. Again, the student teachers had the ability to see their failures and imperfections as part of human experience and they were academically successful and satisfied with their social relationship. The results of t-test showed that there were significant differences in mean scores of student teachers for describing, non-judgment and overall mindfulness. The mean scores of male students were higher in mindfulness and its subscales except acting with awareness facet than those of female students. Moreover, there were significant differences in academic adjustment and emotional adjustment by gender and in acting with awareness, describing, and mindfulness by university and college. According to ANOVA results, there were significant differences in non-judgment, self-kindness, common humanity, overall self-compassion and emotional adjustment of student teachers by subject combination. Moreover, there were significant differences in mindfulness, self-compassion and adjustment by institution and by location. In addition, the results indicated that mindfulness and self-compassion are the best predictors of student teachers’ adjustment. Therefore, these findings may contribute to designing effective programs for cultivating successful mindfulness, self-compassion and adjustment in student teachers.