Primary school teachers documenting reflections: A Western Sydney case study

Throughout Australia, the practice of reflection has secured a place in Initial Teacher Education degrees and teacher accreditation requirements. Teacher education aims to ensure confidence in graduates’ capacities to critically reflect and document reflections. However, it is unknown how reflective practice has transferred from pre-service education to the school context and throughout teachers’ careers.
The reviewed literature evidenced an expansive volume of knowledge concerning reflection. However, evidence was scant when it came to knowledge of reflective practices in the primary school environment. Previous studies were broad-sweeping and provided generalised recommendations. Large-scale reform evaluation studies revealed the need for an in-depth exploration of teacher reflection in the primary school.
A qualitative case study was adopted to explore the practices of eight primary school teachers. Convenience sampling resulted in a diverse range of participant employment status and expertise. Data drawn from semi-structured interviews, a researcher journal, and fieldnotes, were thematically analysed for understandings and descriptions of the key concepts of reflection, critical reflection, and documenting reflections. Moscovici’s (1978) theory of social representation, Minott’s (2006) pragmatic model of reflection, and Valli’s (1997) definitional distinctions were relevant in explaining the role of reflection and knowledge creation in the school context.
Participants defined core concepts of reflection in technical terms according to their daily practices. They voiced that reflection was crucial to practice and identified influences that enabled them to reflect and document their reflections. However, the challenges they faced at times, were overwhelming. Notably, a lack of early career mentoring in reflective practices, time constraints, employment inequities, low self-efficacy, and a lack of professional development in reflection were evident. Such obstacles hampered efforts to document reflections. Although participants continually reflected individually, collegial reflection and documenting practices were often unattainable.
This research highlighted the challenge of consistent understandings through knowledge transitions and between all sectors of education. Furthermore, the results highlight the need for focused, equitable, and consistent, understandings and applications of reflection in the primary school setting, at a time of ongoing accreditation reform and implementations of new curriculum.