Developing a Reflective Thinking Tendency Scale for Teachers and Student Teachers.

Abstract This paper aims to develop the Reflective Thinking Tendency Scale (RTTS) for teachers and student teachers. Survey was the research method used in the study. In this research, there were 599 cases and 456 of these cases were the students of the departments of the Turkish language teaching and primary school teaching within grades of 2nd, 3rd and 4th at Firat University. The total number of students who attended the classes mentioned above was 960. The ratio of the population to the sample was 47.5%. The rest of the cases were composed of 143 primary school teachers (6th, 7th, 8th grades) who worked in Cermik in the city of Diyarbakir. The total number of teachers who worked in Cermik was 194. In this case, the ratio of the population to the sample was 71%. According to the factor analysis results, KMO value of the RTTS was 0.91 and the value of Barlett test was 6811.46 (p Key Words Reflective thinking, teacher, student teachers. Reflection means transferring (TDK, 1992) and student teachers express their feelings and ideas while explaining a subject (Gagnon & Collay, 2001). Dewey (1910) was the main person to clarify and develop the term of reflective thinking. He expressed the term of reflective thinking as the organization of thinking such as active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends. According to Dewey, a reflective teacher always questions his-her objectives continuously, observes practices and results and thinks about every student in the short and long terms (Moallem, 1997, 143). Besides all these, a student who would like to be reflective must also be open-minded, friendly, and have the responsibility of learning (Ross, Bondy & Kyle, 1993). According to Taggart and Wilson (2005), reflective thinking is the process of making informed and logical decisions on educational matters and then assessing the consequences of these decisions. There are a lot of studies on reflective teaching and reflective thinking in related research fields (Alp & Taflkin, 2007; Altinok, 2002; Arslantafl, 2003; Bell, 2007; Brockbank, 2002; Gardner, 1995; Gelter, 2003; Lee, 2005; Loughran, 1996; Savran, Cakiroglu & Tekkaya, 2005; Schon, 1987; Wade, 1994; Zeichner, 1993; Zeichner & Liston, 1987). A reflective thinking teacher always tries to train students with his/her best. There are a lot of studies on this subject and resembling it (Bloom, 1913; Cruickshank, Bainer & Metcalf, 1995; Demirel, 2002; Ennis, 1962, 1991; Grossman & Williston, 2001; Langer, 2002; Saylan, 1991; Norton, 1996 cited in Unver, 2003; Yorulmaz, 2006). The aim of this research is to develop the RTTS for teachers and student teachers. With this, the validity and reliability studies of the RTTS are aimed. Method The method of the research was survey method (Kaptan, 1998; Karasar, 1995). The scale was administered to 599 cases. Among them, 456 were from Firat University, students studying in the departments of primary education and Turkish language as 2nd 3rd and 4th grades in the faculty of education. …