Abstract

• The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between perfectionism and psychological distress of student teachers. The explanatory sequential design was used. In the quantitative study, a total of 350 student teachers (116 males and 234 females) from three teacher education institutions was selected by using stratified sampling technique. Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991b, 2004) and PGI Health Questionnaire N-1 (Verma, Wig, & Pershad, 1985) were used. Regarding perfectionism, self-oriented perfectionism was the highest in all three subscales of perfectionism: self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism. Finding indicated that 12% of student teachers had high level of perfectionism. The result of independent samples t-test revealed that there was significant gender difference in other-oriented perfectionism. ANOVA results indicated that there were significant teacher education institution differences in other-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism and total perfectionism. Regarding psychological distress, 17.4% of student teachers were elevated in psychological distress. Findings indicated that there were significant gender and teacher education institution differences in psychological distress. Moreover, the results indicated that there was a positive correlation between perfectionism and psychological distress. Furthermore, socially prescribed perfectionism was positively correlated with psychological distress. Finally, a qualitative follow up study was conducted by semi structured interview. The interview results indicated that student teachers with high level of perfectionism were found to be associated with high level of psychological distress. The results of this study offered important implications for counselling with perfectionists that have high level of psychological distress.