Promoting Self-Reflection and Further Development Orientation through Reflection-Oriented Workshops in Teacher Education

Abstract

In the context of teacher professionalization, self-reflection is an essential requirement because it is central to the further development of one’s own competences. This connection underlines the need to promote self-reflection and further development orientation already in the first phase of teacher education. For this purpose, targeted reflection-oriented workshops seem to be promising, especially due to the social nature of this method. In order to investigate the effects of reflection-oriented workshops and the connection between self-reflection and development orientation, both constructs were examined using a sample of N = 646 student teachers attending workshops on generic competences. Data was collected before, immediately after and four to six weeks after the reflection-oriented work-shops by questionnaire. Variance analyses show significant effects on self-reflection immediately after the workshops, as well as a constant expression four to six weeks later. In addition, a significant increase in further development orientation can be found across the three measuring points. Furthermore, there has been a positive effect of self-reflection on the increase in development orientation.