This study traces evidence of reflection in teacher education and teaching practice by measuring reflection of pre-service teachers and experienced teachers and clarifying reflection-oriented reactions to possible confusions or problematic situations considering whether or not they are reflective practitioners. The data were collected from 514 volunteer pre-service teachers and 466 experienced teachers teaching science, math, English, Turkish and primary classes. Teacher Reflection Scale (TRS) [1] was used to collect data. In order to analyze the data and obtain descriptive statistics for the item results, SPSS 16.0 was employed. Statistical analyses gave evidence that pre-service primary teachers had a high mean of reflection. Under the light of the results gathered from data, experienced teachers did not attain higher reflection scores when compared to pre-service teachers. There is evidence that math teachers’ experiences in school settings might lead them to reflect on their practices in time. Experienced teachers of English, science, Turkish and primary education did not attain higher TRS scores when compared to pre-service teachers of the same subject areas. There was no statistically significant and meaningful difference between the rank averages of the mentioned groups’ reflection scores. Besides, pre-service and experienced primary teachers’ reflection scores seem higher than the ones obtained from other subject areas; also there is no significant difference between these two groups. Pre-service and experienced math teachers’ results demonstrate that the scores of experienced math teachers revealed a statistically significant difference at a meaningful level (p=.000).
Author(s) Details
Saziye Yaman
American University of the Middle East (AUM), Kuwait.
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