Abstract:

The transition from a pre-service teacher status to teaching reality requires interns to cope with the demands and complexity of teaching, causing great burden and high stress levels and psychological distress. Hence, the need arises to strengthen interns' ability, provide cognitive and emotional grounds for inner resilience and a sense of stability and confidence. SOCITS (sense of coherence in teaching situations) (Bracha & Hoffenbartal, 2015), based on the sense of coherence concept (Antonovsky, 1979), is an internal coping resource for coping with stressful situations, expressing the extent to which teachers have a dynamic sense of confidence in that teaching situations are expected and familiar, and their beliefs in their ability to cope and resolve situations optimally. SOCITS consists of three components: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. A previous study found four factors enhancing or inhibiting SOCITS: pedagogical, students and relationship with them, school as an ecosystem, and perception of personal and professional identity. These led to developing an applied tool - examining factors enhancing or inhibiting SOCITS.

The research sought to identify the following among teaching interns:
- The factor that most enhances the three SOCITS' components among tools' factors.
- The sub-factor that most enhances SOCITS and its components among tools' factors.

Forty interns in an elementary school and special education frameworks participated in this qualitative study. The applied tool helped identify factors and sub-factors enhancing interns' SOCITS and its components the most. Data analysis consisted of calculating frequencies and means of each factor.

The results indicated:
- The pedagogical factor that most enhances all SOCITS components among teaching interns, was followed by the other factors in a descending order: students and the relationship with them, perception of personal and professional identity and school as an ecosystem.
- "Time and tasks management" pedagogical sub-factor was found to enhance comprehensibility and manageability in teaching situations, while "love of the profession" sub-factor was found to enhance meaningfulness in teaching situations.
- "Relationship with students" sub-factor was identified as enhancing SOCITS and its components the most.
- In the perception of personal and professional identity factor, the sub-factor "shaping personal and professional identity in teaching" was identified as enhancing SOCITS and its components the most.
- In "school as an ecosystem" factor the sub-factor "quality of contact with school staff, management, mentor and parents" was identified as enhancing SOCITS and its components the most.

The research contribution is the ability to use the applied tool–Examining Factors Enhancing or Inhibiting SOCITS, to authentically identify and map factors and sub-factors enhancing SOCITS and its components among interns. Thus, presenting a picture of these factors for each intern, allowing for interns and mentors to construct an applicable program adapted to each intern, for their ongoing professional development. Consequently, the interns' internal resilience in their internship year will be strengthen.

Keywords:

Interns, Internship year, SOCITS (sense of coherence in teaching situations), Resilience, Enhancing SOCITS, Inhibiting SOCITS.