Psychological and Personal Dimensions of Prospective Teachers' Reflective Abilities

Abstract

With an increasing concern that teachers develop reflective thinking abilities as part of their teacher training programs, there comes a need to know more about the reflector. This knowledge can guide teacher education programs in providing experiences that will enhance or encourage reflective ability. A Q-technique factor analysis was employed to examine a number of psychological and personal characteristics of prospective teachers in order to provide a description of those who have been classified as reflectors. The results indicate that both psychological and personal characteristics may be useful for describing reflectors and non-reflectors. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.

Interventionswissenschaft

“…Gipe, Richards, Levitov, and Speaker concluded that the ability to reflect is an important ability for a (case) teacher. They thus followed an argument by Charvoz, Crow, and Knowles, who stated that the development of self-reflective attitudes is a specific aim of inquiry-oriented teacher education programs (1988( , in: Gipe et al 1991. Gipe et al differentiated a reflective prospective teacher from a non-reflective one (1991,916) and tried to divide these groups by analyzing "… certain psychological and personal characteristics of prospective teachers …" (ibid., 916).…”

Reflective ability and moral reasoning in final year medical students: A semi-qualitative cohort study

“…Reflective ability is the capacity to question and critically analyse experience (Gipe et al 2001). King and Kitchener (2001) outline three stages in reflective ability: prereflective (limited to concrete black and white concepts), quasi reflective (in which uncertainty is recognised as a problem) and reflective thinking (in which uncertainty and complexity are integrated into a justifiable opinion for a judgement to be formed).…”