Stimulating Reflection by Research-based Learning? Analysis of Study Reports

Abstract

Reflection is  significant for  teacher education  as well as for professionalism as a teacher. The concept of research-based learning is crucial in supporting student-teachers’ reflection. However, until now only few empirical studies  look  at  how  research-based  learning  helps  developing  the  ability  to  reflect. This paper addresses the issue of research-based learning and reflection. It focusses  on  “Studienprojekte”  (study  projects)  –  a  specific  form  of  research-based learning  during  the  so-called  practical  teaching  semester  in  North  Rhine  Westphalia. We understand reflection as a cognitive process, and use a model for reflection  called  EDAMA  (Aeppli  & Lötscher,  2017).  The  EDAMA  model  integrates different concepts  of  and approaches to  reflection,  and defines  “reflection phases”  that  overlap  with  phases  of  the  research  process.  We  assume  that  moments of reflection constantly  arise  during  the student research process, and that they can be reconstructed by means of the  documentation of the research process, i.e.,  the  “Studienbericht” (study report).  The study focuses on the issue: To what extent can reflection be  shown  in the written reports on the  study projects  using the  chosen  EDAMA  model?  To  answer  this  question  we  utilised  the  content analysis of 18  study projects. The results show that moments and phases of reflection are  documented in the reports. In addition,  reflection can refer to different practices: own school practice,  other teachers’  school practice,  and own research  practice.  Furthermore,  there  are  different  focal  points with  regard  to  the discussion in relation to one's own person or the perceived school environment.