Examining the Quality of Preservice Science Teachers’ Written Reflections When Using Video Recordings, Audio Recordings, and Memories of a Teaching Event
Source: Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 18(1), 81-101.
(Reviewed by the Portal Team)
This study aimed to explore what happened when a group of preservice teachers (PSTs) used video prompts, audio prompts, or memory alone during a guided reflective writing exercise.
Methods
The participants were 23 graduate students, who enrolled Introduction to Secondary Science Teaching course in a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) secondary science program housed in a Department of Middle and Secondary Education at a research-intensive university in the southeastern U.S.
They were asked to participate in a study, where they first video-recorded their practice teaching, edited the video footage to identify and isolate critical incidents, and then wrote guided reflection papers in a proctored classroom setting. They wrote their papers while having access to either the edited video clips, audio only from the video clips, or memory alone of the teaching incidents.
The researchers used a counterbalanced research design to compare the quality of writing that participants produced when they had access to either their edited video clip of the incident, audio from the clip only, or their memory of the incident alone while writing.
The authors evaluated the papers using a rubric developed by Ward and McCotter (2004).
Findings
The authors found that participants wrote significantly higher quality papers on several indicators when prompted by video than when prompted by audio.
The authors also found that there was also a difference in means between their reflections when prompted by video and when they worked from memory alone.
The authors have also found that using mobile devices for teacher education purposes has made the process easier because (a) using a mobile device to capture video is now rather a commonplace activity, (b) mobile devices are comparably more familiar and less obtrusive in classroom contexts than professional cameras or recorders, and (c) users can capture, edit, and share video footage with relative ease all on the same mobile device.
The authors conclude that the findings revealed that reflection papers written while referencing video of critical teaching incidents were of significantly higher quality than those written while referencing audio.Â
Reference
Ward, J. R., & McCotter, S. S. (2004). Reflection as a visible outcome for PTs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(3), 243-257.