How Are Professional Knowledge in Education, Attitudes towards Re-flection and the Reflective Performance of Prospective Teachers Related?

Abstract

In the debate about the relationship between theory and practice, great importance is attributed to the reflection competence of prospective teachers, as it is often understood as a mediating instance between theoretical knowledge and practical experiences (e.g. Häcker, 2017). Following competence-theoretical framework models (von Aufschnaiter, Fraij & Kost, 2019; Blömeke, Gustafson & Shavelson, 2015) as well as a cognitive-psychological understanding of reflection (Aeppli & Lötscher, 2016; Korthagen, 2001), this article reports results of a study on the connection between knowledge and reflection. In a sample of N=295 student teachers for all types of schools, the professional knowledge of educational science was assessed by means of a knowledge test, reflection-related affective-motivational dispositions by means of self-assessment scales, and reflection-related performance by means of written situation vignettes. Through correlation and regression analyses, significant, positive correlations between the students’ knowledge, their subjective assessment of the relevance of reflection in teacher training, their reflection-related self-efficacy expectations and reflection-related performance can be demonstrated. The regression analyses show an effect exclusively with regard to educational science knowledge on the reflection-related performance of the students.