QUALITATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS OF REFLECTION IN LANGUAGE TEACHER PRACTICUM SETTINGS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN SECOND LANGUAGE STUDIES MAY 2019 By Jay Tanaka Dissertation Committee: Betsy Gilliland - Chairperson James Dean Brown Richard Day Nicole Ziegler Charlotte Frambaugh-Kritzer Copyright 2019 by Jay Tanaka All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all my committee members, Dr. Gilliland, Dr. Brown, Dr. Day, Dr. Ziegler, and Dr. Frambaugh-Kritzer. I fully recognize how busy everyone is with their teaching and research, and I am so grateful that you have taken so much time out of your schedules to support my academic journey and to provide advice for this dissertation, the most important work of my scholarly career thus far. It is my honor to have each of you on my committee. I would also like to give additional thanks to Dr. Gilliland. Your constant support and advice throughout the years of this study, no matter if you were here or busy working abroad, gave me the confidence to take risks and the motivation to follow through on my ideas. I would also like to thank the Bilinski Educational Foundation for providing financial support for this research. The Bilinski fellowship allowed me the time I needed to focus on my data analysis, and this was so important because the frameworks used in this study had to be built from scratch. This dissertation was also possible thanks to the ʻOihana Maikaʻi fund. The support I received was essential during the data collection stage of this study. I am also grateful to my colleagues Mery Diez and Carrie Bach for helping me toss around different ideas throughout the course of my research. Thank you for reassuring me at those times when I wasn’t sure what made sense. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love and support throughout. It was due to their understanding and patience that I was able to complete this work. iii ABSTRACT At least one element of second language teacher education (L2TE) permeates contextual differences: reflection. Farrell (2012) suggests that the terms reflection and reflective practice are now mandatory terms used within in L2TE program curricula. Teacher learners (TLs) commonly engage in reflective assignments such as teacher journals and group discussions. However, there has been a lack of sufficiently data-led investigations into the content and nature of TL reflections (Mann & Walsh, 2017), with most taking the form of self-reports or short extracts from teacher reflection journals. While such studies provide important insights from the perspectives of language teacher reflection researchers within unique contexts, more structured, qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012) provides the valuable ability to systematically compare reflection across contexts and individual cases. This is crucial for building a richer understanding of language teacher reflection generally. The current study investigates the reflection of 17 TLs across two distinct practicums. Variation in the amount of reflection in different topics and the amount of reflection that included the act of referencing sources of information was analyzed across individual TLs and across four different reflection assignments (reflective journals, final papers, group discussions, and observation debriefs). Findings revealed a generally high concentration of reflection on teaching actions related to the content and structure of lesson activities; however, reflection in final papers featured a greater variety of topics than in other reflection assignment data. With respect to referencing, TLs with professional teaching experience had low frequencies of references to their experiences as language learners. In addition, the general amount of referencing sources of information in reflection was found to be different across individual TLs. The overall findings illustrate that referencing is an important aspect of TL reflection, and I iv argue for an explicit focus on this concept within L2TE, encouraging the diversification of the kinds of sources TLs reference in their reflection. Similarly, I also argue for efforts toward the diversification of TL reflection among various topics related to language teaching. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................iii Abstract ..................................................................................................................................iv List of Tables .........................................................................................................................viii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ix Chapter 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................1 Researcher Position on the Concept of Reflection .........................................................3 Origins of Reflection Theory in Education ...........................................................4 Simple Wonderings in a Model of Reflective Thinking .......................................5 Systematic Inquiry and Multilogical Thinking .....................................................7 The Status of Reflection in L2TE ...................................................................................11 Research Questions ........................................................................................................12 Chapter 2. Teacher Reflection and Reflective Practice ....................................................15 Frameworks for Defining Reflection .............................................................................18 Topics of Teacher Reflection .........................................................................................24 The Way Teachers Reflect .............................................................................................28 TLs Learning Reflection in L2TE Programs ..................................................................33 Constructs and Instruments in Reflection Research .......................................................36 Analysis of Reflection Topics ...............................................................................36 Analysis of How TLs Reflect ................................................................................38 Current Gaps in TL Reflection Research .......................................................................40 Chapter 3. Methods .............................................................................................................43 The Multimethod Design of the Study ...........................................................................45 The Research Sites: Two Second Language Teaching Practicums ................................46 Researcher’s Role at the Practicum Sites .......................................................................49 Recruitment ....................................................................................................................51 Teacher Learners ...................................................................................................51 Students .................................................................................................................52 Practicum Instructors .............................................................................................52 Data Collection ...............................................................................................................53 Instructor Interviews ..............................................................................................53 Teacher Learner Interviews/Repertory Grid Interviews .......................................54 Class Observations ................................................................................................57 Group Discussions .................................................................................................58 Journals ..................................................................................................................59 Final Reflection Papers .........................................................................................59 Observation Debriefs .............................................................................................60 Course Projects ......................................................................................................60 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................61 Data Segmentation ................................................................................................62 Segmentation of Final Papers and Journals ...................................................68 Segmentation of Observation Debriefs and Group Discussions ....................69 Managing the Distinction between Written and Audio Data Segmentation ..71 Dimensions and Subcategories of the Coding Frame ...........................................72 Dimension 1: Reflection Topics ....................................................................73 vi Miscellaneous Categories ..................................................................75 Materials ............................................................................................77