Secondary School Science Teachers’ Views about Their Reflective Practices

Abstract

Abstract The importance of reflection in teaching and learning lies in encouraging one to view problems from different perspectives. Reflective practice can be useful in designing teacher education and sustainable professional development. Conscious reflection is an important element for helping teachers and learners in problem-solving and decision-making processes and fostering their critical-thinking abilities. The aim of the present research was to investigate teachers’ views about the nature of their experiences with reflective practices and reflective teaching. A survey consisted of three dimensions used to collect the data. It was distributed to 458 (237 male and 221 female) science teachers working at high schools in Saudi Arabia. The results have indicated that teacher practices of almost all reflective activities included in the three dimensions “the extent of practicing reflection”, “areas of practicing reflection”, and “ways of practicing reflection” are at “high” level from their point of view. The results have also shown that there are no significant differences in the teachers’ views about their practices of reflective activities related to their gender, or experiences in the teaching profession.