Which elements of reflection about professional practice interest future teachers ? – Factors structure of a questionnaire and first empirical results

Abstract

The following article reports about the construction of a questionnaire which measures the patterns of interest in professional reflection during their teacher training. Three conceptual factors are relevant: (a) interest in reflection (IR), (b) distance from theory (DT) and (c) pragmatism (P). Following several pilot studies, the questionnaire was tested in a random sample of 210 students. The empirical findings confirmed the theoretically postulated factor structure. A follow-up study (N=79), showed that interest in reflection (IR) as well as distance from theory (DT) developed differently depending on the teacher training institution. Additionally, students with the highest marks in professional practice exams had significantly less distance from theory. The results confirm the relevance of the concepts.