Purpose

Teacher education students experience a series of learning and professional development processes before becoming teachers. During the process, teacher education students choose teacher as their career and receive training to become teachers with professional literacy, attitude, and competency. In addition, they acquire cooperative awareness and techniques through the process. Through self-directed learning, the teacher education students sustain their professional development. This study used a capability maturity model as the theoretical basis to construct a capability maturity model for teacher education students, in which the students, through a series of professional development processes, were provided with professional competency and affective education, proficiency in teaching-specific domain knowledge, practical capabilities in classrooms, teaching assessment capabilities, and capabilities for self-assessing multiple aspects of the professional development processes.

Design/methodology/approach

This study collected data through multiple stages. First, literature involving professional literacy, self-directed learning, and cooperative learning as the theoretical bases was discussed. Then, a capability maturity model for teacher education was adopted. After summarization and organization, the model was preliminarily structured with 5 levels and 25 elements. Subsequently, a modified Delphi method was used to summarize expert opinions. According to the obtained results, a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process questionnaire was created to collect and analyze data. The weighting of each level and element was calculated to establish a weighting system.

Findings/results

The primary results revealed that ML1 initial level had the highest weighting of 0.38, followed by the advanced course management implementation level (0.19), basic course management (0.18), quantified management (0.13), and sustainable optimization (0.1). Within each of the levels, the elements with the highest weighting in ML1 (initial level), ML2 (basic course management level), ML3 (advanced course management implementation level), ML4 (quantified management level), and ML5 (sustainable optimization level) were “knowledge regarding education theory (0.28),” “course planning capability (0.33),” “classroom management capability (0.25),” “resource management capability (0.38),” and “professional responsibility (0.33),” respectively.

Originality/value

The proposed capability maturity model for teacher education students used ideal image of professional teachers as the goal for the students’ professional competency development. The model can serve as references for teacher education institutes in course planning and for assessing teacher education students’ core competency indicators. Moreover, the model may be employed to assist sustainable development of teacher education professionalism.

Suggestions/implications

This study constructed a capability maturity model for teacher education students to integrate teacher education courses and relevant competencies and literacy of teacher education students. The model facilitates teacher education students’ professional development in various stages and their self-assessment in sustainable development.