Examining the depth of primary schoolteachers’ reflection through the critical incident technique

ABSTRACT

The present research aims to identify the depth of reflection attained by primary school teachers through the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) according to the categorisation of Lee (2005) and specific factors that could determine a higher level of reflection. For the first research phase twenty teacher semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results so far indicate that the majority of participants tend to reflect at Rationalisation Level while a small percentage of the sample were considered to have attained Reflective Level, in accordance with Lee’s three-level categorisation of reflective thinking depth (namely Recall Level, Rationalisation Level, Reflective Level). The research also highlights specific factors, such as age, level of education, years of teaching experience that have a crucial impact on teachers developing a higher level of reflection.

KEYWORDS:

• Depth of reflection
• primary school teachers
• critical incident technique
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Reveka Voulgari

Reveka Voulgari is a teacher of primary school, holder of a MSc in Pedagogical Psychology and PhD Candidate in the Department of Economics and Sustainable Development at Harokopio University (Athens, Greece). Her research interests focus on teacher effectiveness, educational reflection and feedback, implementation of alternative teaching strategies and professional development of primary education teachers.

Konstantina Koutrouba

Konstantina Koutrouba is a PhD Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and Sustainable Development at Harokopio University (Athens, Greece), specialized in Pedagogy and Instructional Studies. Her research interests focus on the study of the factors on which effective teaching and learning within school settings is based, the implementation of innovative teaching strategies that contribute to students’ cognitive, social and affective development and the application of scientific interventions for teacher profile and professionalism reinforcement.