Student Teacher Reflective Writing: What Does It Reveal?
Source: European Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 36, Issue 2, 2013, pages 147-163
The purpose of this study is to explore how deliberate reflection by student teachers is encouraged as a way to prepare, analyse and evaluate their practice.
A total of 104 student teachers in primary education participated in this study during their practicum and produced reflective accounts to identify and think about problems they encountered in their teaching practice. The written reports were analysed for precision or explicitness of statements in relation to types and levels of knowledge generated in reflection.
Three main types of knowledge were produced by the student teachers through deliberate reflection (appraisals, rules and artefacts). A relationship was found between producing high levels of knowledge and precision of reflective statements. The authors interpret this to mean that while deliberate reflection can support the construction of professional knowledge, this only rarely occurs.