Recent Study on Reflection as a Source of Teacher Development: Pre-service and Experienced Teachers

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).