Reflective Teacher

Educational Research Review 1 (2006) 112–132
Studying studies on teacher reflection and action:

An appraisal of research contributions
Juan Jose Mena Marcos a , Harm Tillema b,∗
a Facultad de Educación, P◦ de canalejas, 169, 37008 Salamanca, Spain
b Department of Education, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 KG Leiden, The Netherlands
Received 27 February 2006; received in revised form 17 August 2006; accepted 18 August 2006
Abstract
For decades a substantial body of research on teacher reflection and action has been conducted. This research contains a wealth of
information on teachers’ thinking about their daily work in classrooms. But what do these studies tell us about the linkage between
thought and action in actual teaching? How do they contribute to our understanding, or do they, in the very selection of their methods,
‘tell only half the story’? To address these concerns, we have engaged in a critical appraisal to learn about the scope and limitations
of research contributions and identify criteria that may shed light on exactly what aspects of teacher learning and development are
being studied.
This appraisal uses an analytic framework to position the various studies that have been conducted. From our analysis, which
focuses on the validity criterion of closeness between type of research question and data collection methods, we conclude that the
research would profit from a set of more detailed criteria to address some of the limitations inherent in approaches to studying
teacher reflection and action.
© 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Teacher reflection; Research on teaching; Qualitative methodology; Inquiry; Meta-analysis
1. Introduction
What makes a reflective teacher? This question has been dealt with in many studies by exploring the relations
between teacher action and thinking (as a follow-up to the iconic publication by Schön, 1983; see Fendler, 2003). At
present, these studies can enrich the ongoing debate about teacher certification, teacher quality, and the position of
teacher education (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005; Edwards, Gilroy, & Harley, 2002; Gallagher & Bailey, 2000) by
offering a perspective on the dynamic relation between teacher activity and teacher beliefs (Cochran-Smith & Fries,
2002; Loughran, 2005; Tickle, 2001). Understanding teacher reflection and action requires intensive knowledge of
what, how, and for what purposes teachers learn, and how this learning is integrated with their workplace activity
(Alexander, 2005; Mulder, Swaak, & Kessels, 2004). There is a wealth of evidence that testifies to the importance and
breadth of scope of teacher reflective thought, and it comes from a plurality of conceptual bases (Day, 1997; Edwards
et al., 2002). These studies can, therefore, contribute much to our understanding of the what, how, and purposes of
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 72 5273388; fax: +31 71 5273619.

E-mail addresses: juanjo mena@usa1.es (J.J.M. Marcos), tillema@fsw.leidenuniv.nl (H. Tillema).
1747-938X/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2006.08.003
J.J. Mena Marcos, H. Tillema / Educational Research Review 1 (2006) 112–132 113
teacher knowledge construction, teacher learning, and professional development by recognizing the multiplicity of
ideas from which teacher learning can be captured.
To enter the ongoing debate on teacher learning and education, however it is important to clarify how effectively
these studies articulated the relationships between ideas such as teacher reflection and action, and how they have been
substantiated in research results. The diverse research strands that deal with the study of teacher action and reflection,
including teacher beliefs (Day, 1997), teacher development (Littlejohn, 2000), self study in teacher education (Samaras,
2002), teacher action research (McNiff, 1988), and studies of reflection in student teachers (Korthagen, 2002), have
increasingly been confronted with the need to explain just ‘what has been learned’ (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005;
Darling Hammond & Youngs, 2002). In general, education researchers have also been urged to unlock the intricacy
that cloaks research on teaching, which has been partly induced by the ‘warrant of accountability’ (Cochran-Smith &
Fries, 2002) and the movement towards ‘evidence based’ research that governs how studies are used (Izumi & Evers,
2002).
The range of articles and studies that aim at understanding teacher thinking, their capacities for self-research,
reflection, and beliefs, have contributed much to building a knowledge base on teaching (Barnes, 2004; Fendler, 2003).
Indeed, several testimonies can be found in reviews and handbooks on teaching (Richardson, 2001) that try to describe
and explain this edifice of knowledge. Most of these sources intentionally highlight the content and subject matter of
what has been found, and their range covers very diverse research (Barnes, 2004; Edwards et al., 2002; Tomlinson,
Dockrell, & Winne, 2005). Yet only few specifically address the way the research was conducted, how the findings
were arrived at, or whether the study designs were correctly set up to investigate teaching. The how (or method of
study) is of very great importance for an in-depth evaluation of what a study signifies. The methods employed in the
study allow for clarification of the researcher’s perspectives, viewpoints, and approaches to the subject; they capture
the content under investigation. The ‘method’ or design of a study acts like a searchlight to illuminate or block out
findings, as well as reveal or hide particular aspects of teaching. For example, although many studies have explicitly or
implicitly understood that teachers are the basis for classroom change and student learning (Brownlee, 2003; Greenman
& Dieckmann, 2004; Loughran & Berry, 2005; McLaren, 2000), not all regard their findings as within the context of
teacher development, nor is their intention to improve teacher competency levels (Milner, 2005; Tomlinson et al., 2005).
This difference in researcher intentions, along with the way researchers shape their construction of grounded
knowledge, merges into the researcher’s design of research on teaching and reconstruction of (the components of)
teaching activity. This makes it important to situate concretely how studies are designed to understand the complexities
of teaching and to clarify which instruments are used to tap and disclose its intricacies. A thorough review of the research
literature on teaching will help us examine the research’s strategy for creating knowledge. But before embarking on
such an enterprise, it is crucial to substantiate the assertion that studies of teaching often have certain limitations in
their design, or have to set boundaries in scope in the course of conducting the research.
Over the past decade most studies on teaching try to link practice (action) and reflection (thinking) in more than one
way. This linkage has been aptly labelled as: reflection on action (Schön, 1983), wisdom of practice (Shulman, 1987),
thoughtful action (Clark & Hollingsworth, 2002), situational understanding (Bereiter, 2002), or situated knowledge
(Leinhardt, 1988), and has become more specific through research on: reflective judgement (King & Kitchener, 2004),
teacher action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988), professional reflective practice (Wallace, 1991), and teacher
knowledge construction (Orland-Barak & Tillema, 2006).
These various strands of research stress the intent to understand a process which, by its nature, combines knowledge
and action. Our main interest here is in studies conducted and designed to grasp this intricate understanding of practice.
Our main interest here is in these studies, conducted and designed to grasp this intricate understanding of practice.
Our initial expectation is that these studies mainly disclose parts of the relationship between thought and action
in teaching, especially those determined by the researchers’ perspectives and methods in studying this relationship.
Acknowledgment of this dependency could point to ways for delineating the search for relevant knowledge on teaching.
By acting on this assumption, we hope to bring to light two core problems in the design of studies on teacher reflection
and action.
1.1. A first problem: fragmenting the process, or ‘telling only half the story’
In the empirical work we reviewed (see Appendix A), we noticed how studies gather knowledge on constituent
elements of teaching but have difficulty in positioning the process as a whole (for example, by treating aspects of
114 J.J. Mena Marcos, H. Tillema / Educational Research Review 1 (2006) 112–132
teaching as separate objects of study). Studies can range from focusing on levels of ideas to identifying prior beliefs,
and from changes in beliefs, modes of reflecting, attitudes towards teaching to personal identity and self-efficacy. But
only in rare cases do we find an interrelated study of teacher activity such as teacher planning, teacher intentions to act,
teacher action potentials, or activity in classroom performance, or even interaction with pupil learning. Teaching as
a process, therefore, is not investigated as an interrelated whole comprised of many functional relationships between
thinking and action. By studying only particular aspects, no matter how important each may be, these studies fragment
teacher activity, and portray isolated understandings (Hutchins, 1995). Therefore, they can only tell ‘half the story’,
which may lead to a contradiction between what the intention was to research (what is ‘preached’ or conceptualized) and
what the results actually provide (the paradox of fragmentation). This segmentation ultimately signifies an imbalance
between the processes studied and the level of grounded knowledge provided through research. As reported elsewhere
(Kane, Sandretto, & Health, 2002), there seems to be a tendency to study the thinking aspect (beliefs and reflections)
rather than what teachers actually do (action). As a result, we have a ‘blind spot’ in our research efforts.
1.2. A second problem: the relevance of outcomes, or ‘telling more than we can know’
What knowledge are we able to ground or warrant (Darling Hammond & Youngs, 2002) from our studies of beliefs,
reflective thinking, or teacher attitudes. A recent report by the AERA Panel on Research on Teaching Education
(edited by Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005) addressed this question very well by analyzing the state of research on
teaching education. This report notes that the most serious limitations ongoing research suffers from is: (1) unclear
and inconsistent objects of study and definitions; (2) no solid frameworks of reference; (3) no full description about
methods for collecting and analyzing data, and only very few longitudinal studies; (4) no reliable measures of teacher
knowledge and lack of mixed methods studies; and (5) lack of any common tradition for conceptualizing outcomes
(Grossman, 2005). This state of affairs must give us pause about our claims and any conclusions we draw from these
studies; it also throws into question the importance of any understandings gained from them.
These two issues suggest that the community engaged in research on teaching should at least rethink or become
aware of the conjunctions in their study of teaching as reflection and action and their explication of the understandings
they produce (first problem), as well as the standards they use to reach these understandings (second problem).
2. Analytical framework
To address these issues we developed a framework to review the studies on reflection and action that describes
what is being studied (first problem) and delineates which research criteria are used to examine what is being studied
(second problem). This aligns with the AERA panel recommendation: ‘We need to develop reliable and valid outcome
measures with consistent language and procedure’ (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005, p. 2). Our analytical framework
is intended to capture the object as well as the method of research, irrespective of the researcher’s intent or conceptual
perspective. Our main purpose is to disclose the way data are collected to provide information about the relationship
between reflection and action and to review the alignment between the methods for obtaining results and the object of
study. Our analytical framework is based on two main contentions:
(1) Regarding the first problem: fragmentation. If only part of a story can be told, how does what was found fit in the
whole? It is our contention that studies need to be embedded in a shared interpretative framework to know where
and how they contribute. At the very least, a community of researchers needs to be aware of the position their
research findings have with respect, not only to their research approach and perspective (which may differ among
communities), but also with respect to domain and object of study.
(2) Regarding the second problem: relevance. When telling what we know, it is paramount to raising awareness of the
methodological standards that help us to gain consistent knowledge on teacher action and thinking. It implies that
the quality criteria to which a study adheres need to be specified; for example, by having them relate to specific
criteria in the methods section of the findings.
We refer to this as the closeness of research studies to the process of teaching. Closeness is much like the validity
concept of plausibility and directness suggested by Frederiksen and Collins (1989). In the realm of research design,
it assumes a relationship between the methods chosen and the process studied. In pursuing our search to identify
Table 1
Interpretative framework delineating studies on teacher reflection and action
The process measured The object studied
The talk (thinking) The walk (action)
Talking (what teachers say) Talking the talk—reflective thinking about teaching Talking the walk—reflection on action
Object: beliefs, prior knowledge about teaching Object: retrospective reflection on teaching (telling what
(telling about teaching) you did)
Key feature: non-restrictedness, openness Key feature: personal, authentic knowledge construc-
tion/building identity
Key assumption: what determines action for Key assumption: what determines action for reflective
professionals’ situated and deeply entrenched thought about practices in teaching to prepare as a
conceptions about practice professional
Instrumental approach: questioning Instrumental approach: written documents (narrative
inquiry)
Walking (what teachers do) Walking the talk—reflection (be)for(e) action Walking the walk—learning by being engaged in/from
action
Object: prospective reflection about or in teaching Object: action (professional practice) in teaching (doing
(doing what you said you would) what you want to do)
Key feature: intentionality Key feature: situated embeddedness
Key assumption: what determines action about Key assumption: what determines action about contextual
professionals’ intentions with respect to subjective indicators that situate professionals’ action within several
norms and experiences within practice constraints
Instrumental approach: written documents (plans Instrumental approach: observation
and designs)
criteria used for conducting the research, our analytical framework is intended to gauge how studies have dealt with
investigating teacher reflection and action. The framework consists of two core dimensions representing the object and
the process of studying teacher ideas and teacher action; it integrates these two in a closer way (see Table 1).
As a result, we can draw a four-way table for positioning studies that deal primarily with:
(1) Talking the talk: descriptive studies investigating how teachers interpret their work in terms of an existing knowledge
base or codified knowledge (that is, studies focusing on the teacher’s voice).
(2) Talking the walk: studies on reported action; investigating retrospective accounts of actions that look back to
interpret what was done (i.e., after action has taken place).
(3) Walking the talk: studies on teacher thinking, investigating teacher plans and intentions, as well as walking through
their background and beliefs before taking action.
(4) Walking the walk: studies on observed action, investigating in depth how action itself exemplifies teacher knowl-
edge.
In this way we classified studies according to their approach to data collection (first problem), which will enable
us to identify the standards used in conducting these studies (second problem). First, we wanted to learn about the
nature of studies identified in each cell and the type of results they aimed for. Second, we wanted to provide greater
depth about the type of instruments and methods used. Both aims could provide information about quality criteria that
warrant the research. By using the analytical framework, we seek to unravel how selected studies on teaching were
designed to explore the dynamic relationship between reflection and action. We may substantiate this framework and
its labelling as follows.
2.1. Talking the talk
Studies dealing with talking the talk encompass beliefs and reflections as assertions about some state of teacher
activity. They seek principled understandings (Dewey, 1933) that drive a teacher’s actions (Bryan & Atwater, 2002).
The talk is part of a teacher’s (episodic) memory (that is, tacit knowledge that represents experiences) (Calderhead &
Robson, 1991; Clark, 1988; Tobin & McRobbie, 1996). These ideas serve as lenses for interpreting daily life events
and play a crucial role in the way teachers frame their decisions in the classroom (Calderhead, 1989). If studies can
retrieve them, it would be a way to gain understanding about teaching as a process (Richardson, 1997). The underlying
assumption in these studies is that teacher action is determined by teacher understandings (Feiman-Nemser, 2001;
Haritos, 2004; Uhlenbeck, Verloop, & Beijaard, 2002); therefore, these studies explain teachers’ own beliefs and
thoughts ‘because they function as filters for making sense of the knowledge and experiences they will encounter’
(Buck & Cordes, 2005, p.45). Studies that investigate beliefs assume that teachers bring prior knowledge to their
actions (that is, beliefs are not static; they can change with the setting). Therefore, prior knowledge and previous
understandings frame how such research integrates ‘contextual references’ (Borko & Putnam, 1996). Since gaining
understanding is a main feature of this type of research, it is important to establish how closely such studies gauge
teacher thinking processes (which is our main criterion).
With regard to methodology, the most common approach in research of this type is questioning. Questioning is
based on the use of systematic, (semi-)structured or open questions that are given to a teacher or a group of participants
to assess their beliefs, values, attitudes, and thoughts. Traditionally, there are three major kinds of data collection
instruments: interviews, questionnaires, and checklist surveys (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994); of these, the interview is the
most commonly used in our inventory. We observed, however, that self-questioning tools are beginning to be preferred;
techniques such as writing autobiographies or journals are being used more often (Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Loughran,
2005).
2.2. Talking the walk
Talking the walk essentially means considering what was done before, and reflecting on the actions and events
experienced. The recognition of teachers as being reflective practitioners, who as professionals learn from experience
and construct knowledge for their practice, lies at the heart of this domain of studies (Crocco, Faithfull, & Schwartz,
2003; Darling-Hammond & McLaughin, 1995; Korthagen, 2000; LaBoskey, 1994; Levin & Rock, 2003; Lieberman,
1995b). The underlying assumption is that practitioners can identify and build on their existing understanding to
produce new knowledge and make generalizations from particular experiences that will assist them to apply to new
practices (Carr & Kemmis, 1983; Dewey, 1916; Elliot, Barret, & Hull, 1986; Schön, 1983; Van Manen, 1977). The key
feature of this research is to capture teachers’ knowledge construction (that is, being cognizant of actions performed,
which permits teachers to build knowledge because it ‘holds invaluable promise for developing new understandings and
producing new knowledge about teaching and learning’ (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998, p. 243). As Darling-Hammond
and McLaughin (1995) asserts, ‘professional development today should provide occasions for teachers to reflect
critically on their practice and to fashion new knowledge and beliefs about content, pedagogy and learners’ (p. 597).
Therefore, the study of reflective action is essential in examining personal theories and knowledge construction (Abell,
Bryan, & Anderson, 1998; Gore & Zeichner, 1991). To capture teachers’ reflective and personal theory building, the
research needs to follow closely the representation of authenticity or directness of experiences.
The predominant instrumental approach is narrative inquiry, an approach especially suited to construct knowledge
from actions (Husu, 2003). Narrative inquiry and self reports align closely with reflection, and they may accurately
describe the non-linear nature of practices (Connely & Clandinin, 1990; Jalongo & Isemberg, 1995). The methods
interpret teachers’ work in understandable frameworks in which, ‘the knowledge base for teaching resides in the stories
of experience as a teacher’ (Doyle & Carter, 2003, p.134). As a form of knowledge reconstruction, it is potentially
useful because certain local reasons and constraints (such as lack of time and pressure to cover the content program)
make it less likely that teachers will be tempted to turn to formal theories to make sense of their work. A narrative
representation, because it starts with experience, is open-ended, personal, and not confined to a single interpretation
(Conle, 2000).
2.3. Walking the talk
Walking the talk is about explaining what had been intended or considered as a plan for action. Schutz (1962)
maintains that it is almost impossible not to have a plan to act, and he argues that an analysis of action always shows
that it was carried out in accordance with a plan, albeit implicitly preconceived. Action always presupposes a plan
as a tool previously conceived to carry out a course of action. According to Halpern (2002), the key to success is a
purposeful, goal-directed strategy that increases the likelihood of the desired outcome. We found references to this
underlying conceptual assumption in many of the studies reviewed as ‘planned action theory’ (Bates, 1979; Schutz,
1962), signalling that individuals have intentionality (concrete or general) to help them behave effectively. Walking the
talk represents purposeful thought about the relationship between an intention and action sequence in the process of
relating to typical situations. Other authors have designated this process as prospective reflection (Van Manen, 1995),
or anticipatory action research (Conway, 2001); its key feature being intentionality or purposefulness. To grasp the
deliberateness to act as closely as possible (our main criterion), it is important not to confuse it with reconstructions
or rationalizations of actions afterwards.
The principal methodological approach to gather thoughtful action plans is based on written documents or other
collections of intentions (notes, plans, and diagrams) before a course of action, to reveal its purposes. The materials
studied convey meanings about a course of action, ways of thinking about the action, and main goals. Diaries, teacher
journals, teacher portfolios, or continuing professional development plans could also be included in this type of research.
2.4. Walking the walk
The tacit, hidden world of teaching in action is seized in walking the walk. Much professional knowledge is
encapsulated and embedded in the course of acting within practical settings (that is, the classroom). Many studies
assume that situated cognition and distributed practice more adequately represent teacher learning than do deliberate
thought and reflection (Schiff, Van House, & Butler, 1997). For example, Suchman (1994, p. 39) notes that it is not
principled understanding that determines our actions; such understanding is simply one of the many resources we
can use to achieve our tasks. Consequently, the basic assumption that defines these types of studies is situatedness of
thought and action. Situatedness ‘refers to the nature of interaction whose meanings depend essentially on pointing or
local referencing such that the interpretations are highly contextualized’ (Bor Ng, 2002, p. 614). Lave (1988) and others
(Greeno, 1989; Hutchins, 1995) signify that action is always performed under local contextual guides, which modify
every previous plan. As part of this assumption, we note a renewed interest in collaborative learning and distributed
action in teams (Clark, 2001; Cochran-Smith, 2004; Snow-Gerono, 2005). Studying teacher learning communities
(Orland-Barak & Tillema, 2006) creates opportunities to disclose dialogue in which posing questions and uncertainty
is valued and supported. Clark (2001) indicates that ‘teacher conversation groups constitute a low-cost, sustainable,
satisfying, and potentially transformative form of teacher professional development’ (p. 172). It is therefore important
that the research disclose a wealth of detail and specificity.
As for the instrumental approach, participant observation is the primary way to describe action. The main purpose
is to uncover the intricate relations and discourse in detailed accounts of individuals. Field notes from observers and
videotape records (transcriptions) of meetings/group conversations are the most commonly used instruments to show
professional performance.
3. Selection of studies
Since our interest in this review was to identify established, research-based knowledge on teacher reflection and
action, we could use only empirical work that constituted valid knowledge to be shared with the educational com-
munity. Thus, we did not include any theoretical articles or ones that did not analyze teacher thinking processes or
action. We also excluded ‘self studies’ (n = 1), because they required distinct standards (Bullough & Pinnegar, 2001;
Samaras, 2002). Furthermore, we confined ourselves to recent empirical work in international journals of the last
5 years, i.e., the period 2000–2005, to ensure our sample represented only current work within a strict time frame.
Our search included the following domains (key words): (a) reflection: i.e. critical reflection, collaborative reflection,
reflective thinking/disposition, reflective practice, reflective verbalization, reflective ability, reflective judgement, moral
reflection, reflective teaching, epistemological reflection, anticipatory reflection; (b) action: i.e. teacher action research,
collaborative action research, practical knowledge, transactional inquiry—collaborative inquiry; and (c) beliefs: i.e.
beliefs about reflection, teacher beliefs, teacher perspectives.
The resources and database we used were Current Contents, PsycINFO, ERIC, Web of Science, Periodicals Content
Index, and other Internet collections on the Web. Journals included were: Applied Cognitive Psychology, Asia-Pacific
Journal of Teacher Education, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Cyber Psychology & Behavior,
Educational Psychologist, Higher Educational Research & Development, International Journal of Lifelong Education,
Journal of Adult Development, The Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Further and Higher Education, Journal
of Science Teacher Education, Journal of Teacher Education, Reflective Practice, Studies in Higher Education, and
Teaching and Teacher Education. The peer reviewed papers we identified constituted a sample of 89 studies In our
review we read the selected studies critically and interpreted them and coded the text in different fields: objective
and focus of the study, criteria measured, design, sample, task domain, instruments, method of analysis, main results,
implications and conclusions, theoretical model, information on reliability, and external validity (see Appendix A).
Based on the information these studies provided, 50 of them could be categorized according to our coding scheme.
Excluding studies was based on lack of sufficient descriptive information, a theoretical focus only, or essay type articles
without empirical findings. We observed that 13 studies (26%) focused on more than one aspect of thinking, while the
others (37, or 74%) dealt with only one (Appendix A). Overall, 28 studies focused on reflection after action, 24 on
teaching beliefs, 6 on prospective reflection, and 11 on action itself. The inventory shows that the studies predominantly
focused on thinking processes: beliefs and reflection before and after action (39, or 78%), while only 11 (22%) referred
to action as linked to thinking processes. These data confirm the danger of telling only half the story, as identified by
Kane et al. (2002). Furthermore, we noticed that of the instruments used, few employed field notes or transcriptions
(only 11 studies), while 32 relied on written documents and 32 on questioning techniques.
With regard to reliability, we noticed that 62% of the studies did not report any methodology with respect to the
quality of their data; 41 of the studies (82%) relied on qualitative research, and only 11 (22%) specified a source of
reliability. In 21 of the studies (42%), more than one kind of data collection instrument was used, and in 5 cases (10%)
both qualitative and quantitative analyses were used. Only 16 studies (32%) used observation. As for the source of the
data, our sample included pre-service teachers (23 studies, or 46%), teacher educators (12 studies, or 24%), and other
sources such as undergraduate or postgraduate students or professionals from other fields (10 studies, or 20%).
4. Findings
Building relevant and warranted knowledge directly relies on the adequacy (pertinence) of the research to capture
the nature of their object of study. Thus, it is essential to determine how closely the research seizes the authentic process
it means to study (in each of the four cells of Table 1).
The standard of closeness taps a key feature of studies that try to illuminate professional performance. Studying
something ‘closely’ involves aligning the data collection so that it can provide empirical evidence of the processes
studied relating to the question under study (Burke Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Maxwell & Loomis, 2003). Since
this is not exclusively an instrumental matter (that is, a matter of choice of tools), but more accurately a matter of
design and conceptual interest, we need to identify criteria that can highlight strengths and weaknesses in the conduct
of a study to represent what closeness means in each of the four domains identified in Table 1.
4.1. Talking the talk
It has been assumed that analyzing teacher beliefs can open opportunities for disclosing professionals’ preferred
ways of thinking in practice. We found that questioning is the most common data collecting method (21 of 50), and other
approaches (such as written texts) are more rarely used (3 of 50). Questioning as a direct mode of tapping into thinking is
used in interviews (nine studies, or 42.8%): Kaminski (2003), Levin and Rock (2003), Baxter Magolda (2004), Tillema
(2002), Orland-Barak and Tillema (2006), Kremer-Hayon and Tillema (1999), Brownlee (2003), Kajane (2003), Husu
and Tirri (2004); in questionnaires with six instances, or 28.6%: Kember and Leung (2000), Shireen and Czerniak
(2003), Tillema (2000), Tillema and Knol (1997), Tillema (2005a,b), Smith (2005); while both tools questionnaires
and interviews were used in only three instances (or 14.3%): in Henson (2001), Burbank and Kauchak (2003), Orland-
Barak and Tillema (2006). Researchers tend to use other methods rather than surveys: Giovannelli (2003), Clarke and
Jarvis-Selinger (2005), and Christenson et al. (2002).
Studies that measure teacher thinking (talking about teaching) try to evoke teacher conceptions in different ways.
We identified three approaches to the conduct of studies in this domain:
(a) descriptive studies of teacher beliefs and personal theories,

(b) studies that established levels of thinking (reflective thinking) or,
(c) studies that analyzed the relationship between beliefs and practice.
These three kinds of studies allow participants to expound their beliefs without constraints (using open questions
rather than Likert type questions). This can be taken as a first domain-specific quality criterion (that is, non-restrictive
data collection or non-framing). It is possible to maintain that descriptive studies require full, in-depth description
of teacher beliefs (as complete), whereas reflective studies mainly need to distinguish between precise and selective
boundaries in levels of reflection. Furthermore, studies within this domain stress open data collection in order to have
explanatory value. But non-restrictiveness in data collection may mean different things in different types of studies,
which in turn may lead to different domain-specific quality criteria. We explored how different studies dealt with this
issue.
4.1.1. Descriptive studies of teacher beliefs

Christenson et al. (2002) conducted a 2-year action research project that included 32 teachers. To analyze teacher
understandings about action research, they presented teachers with ‘a pre-post survey to assess changes in their
attitudes and understandings of action research’ (p. 261). The most important question was whether teachers considered
themselves researchers. “Overall the pre and post-survey data indicated a shift in the teachers’ definitions of research
and an increase in the number of teachers willing to call themselves researchers’ (p. 263). Our interest is in how closely
the study reported teacher beliefs. And indeed, according to the selected quality criterion for this domain (or non-framing
of data), the study did closely report these beliefs: teachers were asked several generic questions that allowed them to
explain their beliefs without any constraints. With respect to the overall criterion of closeness, however, the description
of belief in this study has a non-specific outcome: it only mentions changes in conceptions, without exploring their
nature or origins. It is possible to imagine a description of belief change as differences arise among teachers in
the way beliefs have developed, their willingness to change their beliefs during action research, or their preferred
attributes for becoming researchers. To be non-restrictive, the study should offer and analyze various researchers’
definitions, identifying minor and major research themes, rather than offering examples of teacher responses about
being a researcher.
Smith (2005) presents a more complete descriptive analysis by examining several aspects of teacher beliefs. She
compared how 18 experienced teachers and 40 novice teachers spoke ‘about the characteristics of good teacher educa-
tors, the professional knowledge of teacher educators and the difference between the expertise of teacher educators and
teachers’ (p. 177). In an open questionnaire she asked teachers to discuss different aspects of teaching. For example,
one question was: what does it mean to be a good teacher educator? Novice teachers believed the most important
attribute was being able to relate theory and practice (82.5%), while teacher educators believed it was to enhance
reflection in trainees (88.9%). In this study open questions were used in a non-framing way. In addition, the study
showed interrelations among different aspects, to which the teachers could react. Forty themes were explored in order
to arrive at a clear and understandable representation of what both groups thought about different topics (both novice
teachers and teacher educators). This made possible a more specific description of beliefs, a description that allowed
for gauging and comparing themes and categories in a way that was very close to what teachers think.
4.1.2. Reflective thinking

Another group of studies in the domain of ‘talking the talk’ analyzes reflection on action. Kember and Leung (2000)
developed a questionnaire to compare levels of reflective thinking. The definitive version of the questionnaire includes
16 Likert type items that measure four complex ordered scales: (a) habitual action; (b) understanding; (c) reflection
(a critique of premises and assumptions); and (d) critical reflection (realizing that values govern our actions). One
of the main results of the study indicates that ’the mean scores for habitual action and critical reflection are lower
than those for understanding and reflection’ (p. 391). This questionnaire is based on a rigorously piloted model of
reflective thinking (Mezirow, 1992) that has known psychometric qualities, as it is used for interventional purposes.
Again, our query would be: does the study by Kember closely measure reflection? The domain-specific criterion
of non-restrictiveness (not framing the process to be studied) throws into question the extent to which fixed item
questionnaires inform us about levels of reflection in professional thinking (Baxter Magolda, 2004). Would it then
be possible to classify teacher beliefs through open explanations? Elsewhere, Kajane (2003) reported participants’
discussion about whether to appraise four reflective judgement levels. And Baxter Magolda (2004) collected levels of
reflection in a longitudinal study through open-ended annual interviews. In this study Baxter allowed participants to talk
about their beliefs without having set up a fixed set of conditions in advance. This led her to classify participants along
reflective levels, and it even showed an evolution in the participants’ thinking. This approach seems close to gauging
reflective thinking with respect to the quality criterion of non-restrictiveness: it does not frame but rather evokes salient
beliefs, and it compares participants with different reflective levels, showing (through comparison) which stages are
related to performance.
4.1.3. Relationship between beliefs and action

Shireen and Czerniak (2003) sought to ‘identify the factors influencing K-12 science teachers’ attitudes towards
implementation of collaborative reflective practice in their classroom’ (p. 79). The authors administered three open-
ended questionnaires to 30 teachers, exploring the outcome variable: collaborative reflective practice. Teacher belief
items included: (a) attitude towards behaviour (the extent to which an individual believes in targeted behaviour); (b)
subjective norm (behaviours that should or should not be performed); and (c) perceived behavioural control. The
study offers us valuable information about the extent to which teachers adhere to collaborative reflective practices.
But does this study closely assess the relationship between beliefs and collaborative teacher practice? It does offer
regression coefficients that explain the influence of beliefs on practice. When considering the domain-specific criterion
(non-framing), however, it seems that determining teacher beliefs from patterned answers (Likert type) is not closely
aligned to genuine teacher concerns about collaborative reflection in their daily practice (Kagan, 1992; Wang & Odell,
2002; Windschilt, 2002).
In contrast, Giovannelli (2003) chose an open procedure to determine empirically whether there were any existing
relationships among reflective dispositions and effective teaching behaviours. To measure teachers’ reflective dispo-
sitions, she administered a 2-h embedded questionnaire (What should teachers know and be able to do in case of . . .
?) in which teachers were invited to read each question carefully and respond as extensively as possible in a 20-min
timeframe. The scoring instrument applied several criteria, in which each written response was coded from −5 (fairly
simple level of reflection), to +5 (awareness of complexity). As criteria, she identified four domains: classroom manage-
ment, instructional behaviour, classroom organization, and teacher expectations. This study evaluates the relationship
between reflective disposition and effective teaching in an extensive, encompassing way. The open questions allowed
participants to reply freely, which meant it closely measured their significant beliefs (Maxwell, 2004; Wang & Odell,
2002).
The studies on talking the talk all deal with capturing teacher thinking and reflection as closely as possible, although
they differ in the degree to which they frame their understandings of teachers. Given the state of knowledge on what
we know from studies on teacher reflection, an open, non-restrictive approach to gathering information seems to be
more promising because the content and nature of prior conceptions and beliefs can be explored more fully and in
greater detail. This allows for achieving greater coverage of actual teacher thinking.
4.2. Talking the walk
Talking the walk denotes reporting back, after the action, what has been done, often with the purpose of learning
to enhance future performance (cyclical nature). The main feature of studies in this domain is knowledge construction
(see Table 1). The most frequent approach to data collection in this type of research is the use of narratives. Sixteen
of the 22 articles reviewed (40.9%) used written documents as the source of information. Most studies used a single
method approach: Kember et al. (1999), Griffin (2003), Mastrilli and Sardo-Brown (2002), Whipp (2003), Braun and
Crumpler (2004), Hashweh (2003), Ward and McCotter (2004), Jay and Johnson (2002), Smith and Tillema (2001),
Tillema (2000), Tillema and Verberg (2002), VanSliedrecht (2002). Some of them used a mixed approach (documents
and interviews): Kaminski; Price and Valli (2005), Clegg, Tan, and Saedi (2002), Meijer, Zanting, and Verloop (2002),
Ponte, Ax, Beijaard, and Wubbels (2004), Levin and Rock (2003), Smith and Tillema (2003). Only a few used open
interviews as their main source: Barton, McCully, and Marks (2004), Garmon (2004), John (2002), Zeek, Foote, and
Walker (2001), or semi-structured interviews: Butler, Launscher, Jarvis-Selinger, and Beckingham (2004).
In these studies researchers asked participants (usually through written instructions or vignettes) to disclose past
experiences in professional practices, using content analysis to detect emerging themes from the data. The data are most
often categorized as main factors/dimensions that configure the essential features of the studied process. Categories can
be determined beforehand so as to examine some model in practice or they can emerge from the data. Accordingly, our
evaluation of studies should consider how reflection is examined in order to build or reconstruct teachers’ theories on
practice, rather than simply to recollect remembered experiences (personal or professional). It should enable participants
to clarify their own explanations, and not be mediated by the researchers (non-framed), in time or space (formal
constraints), content (questions), or the manner of reflecting (how to reply to questions). We found studies that achieved
this in three distinctive areas (Kelchtermans, 2005).
1. Unfolding life experiences.

2. Unfolding professional experience.
3. Unfolding experiences in practice.
4.2.1. Unfolding life experiences

Braun and Crumpler (2004) prepared students for writing their personal autobiography. In the assignment, student
were encouraged ‘to recall three incidents from their own life that are drawn around one of the social science disciplines
and write a two-page account of each incident’ (p. 62). The study reports recurrent themes with regard to: voicing
reflection (how experiences were reported), giving insights (what was learned), and showing empathy (how students
felt about themselves and others when they wrote their memoirs). Students’ stories were classified (as reflective–non
reflective) with respect to their concepts of change. In this sense almost everyone became more reflective (266 of 302).
One difficulty in studies designed like this one is that reflecting on a biographical account (the talk) may remain
distant from referred-to-actions (can we talk reflectively about personal life accounts without being self referencing?).
That is, to what extent can we build on reflections that lead to knowledge construction, rather than just re-iterating
beliefs? Since the referent of action may be remote, what participants write down can be part of their current system
of thought and attitude rather than representing awareness of change in developing action.
Like Braun and Crumpler (2004), Garmon (2004) analyzed knowledge construction, but he did this only for one
pre-service teacher ‘I asked her to talk about her experiences with diversity, from her earliest childhood memories up
until the present time’ (p. 203). The broad questions make the open interviews different from Braun’s approach, as
the comments are not restrictive or constraining. Yet, the necessary contingent link between reflections and action is
remote, which makes the account unspecific or unrefined. There is no way to know whether reflections are an instance
of talking the talk rather than talking the walk. While analyzing life personal experiences seems an accurate way to
investigate beliefs, it is somewhat inaccurate for establishing whether participants are reflecting on action in a specific
and complete way.
4.2.2. Unfolding professional experience

Similarly, Zeek et al. (2001) closely gauged professional experiences rather than personal life experiences: they
recorded conversations with 34 mentors on change as a result of mentoring practices, using their narratives. Mentors
reflected collaboratively on stories about their own practices and experiences. Gauging professional life is closer to
reflecting on experiences than life events per se, but the improvement may not be sufficiently specific, since we do not
know the exact referent of the reflection. This lack of specificity or boundary-setting limits the power of the reflection.
A possible solution would be to ask questions about a circumscribed event with known features or to compare narratives
of different occasions. For example, one question could be: what do you think about problems identified in a vignette
that describes lesson performance from your experience? Clegg et al. (2002) focused on professional experiences from
specific teacher practice situations. They investigated a group of academics (25) who enrolled in an accredited course.
The main source of data was semi-structured interviews. The authors reported four dimensions of reflective practice
(immediate action, deferred action, immediate reflection, and deferred reflection) through computer content analysis.
Although the study reported mainly on memories of experienced practices (inferred actions), it seems an improvement
in specificity since they asked participants about what they actually did. This provided the researcher with specific
facts and problems experienced by the teachers.
4.2.3. Unfolding experiences in practice

Griffin’s (2003) work appraised pre-service teachers’ reflections directly after their practicum lessons. She collected
critical incidents (135) from 28 undergraduate pre-service teachers and analyzed them in two categories: (a) description
in specific terms: providing details about experience without judgement; and (b) interpreting the incident: classifying
it according to a list of teaching topics. Each critical incident was scored by three experts on four scales (level of
language. level of thinking, orientation towards growth, and reflective thinking), and findings were reported for each
level. The instrument assesses awareness after performance (close to the action). Therefore, the data is able to show how
professionals engage in reflection and thinking about action. But because the instrument circumscribed what would be
reflected on, it could have only limited pre-service teacher spontaneity. The study does show clearly, however, that it
offers a guide on how to write up an incident less unobtrusively.
Also, Meijer et al. (2002) successfully dealt with the criterion of measuring reflections specifically (which were
close to action). In their study, 20 experienced language teachers reflected on their practice while watching their own
videotaped lesson (stimulated recall interviews). Teachers were asked ’to stop the videotape every time they recall
what they were thinking or what was on their minds and encouraged to say everything they can remember thinking
at that point’ (p. 410). In this sense, tacit knowledge beyond observable actions was made explicit. The stimulated
recall technique is appropriate to assess reflective processes because it is tied to a specific context (lesson) and has
memorable references to reflected practices. Moreover, participants’ freedom to reflect remains intact: they are not
subject to researcher guidance (framed), but may report reflections whenever they want (by stopping the video and
commenting on it). Nevertheless, although, they used an ‘authentic tool’ to assess awareness after practice, the study
does not analyze the content of the remarks made by teachers in depth, but instead uses categorized reflections in
researcher-defined frames.
In talking the walk we found authentic ways to identify and assess reflection following action, which contributed to
knowledge (re)construction. The conduct of these studies can be circumscribed by: capturing lived through, or realistic,
experiences by providing a focused lens or, in short, by specificity in data collection. The content of reflection varies
in authenticity, depending on whether it is gauged through life experiences (broad lens), professional experiences, or
practice experiences (embedded focus). Therefore, specificity in setting and boundary-setting by means of instruc-
tions provide teachers with a guide for commenting and giving reflective accounts (Kremer-Hayon & Tillema, 1999;
Windschilt, 2002). The guides configure the directness and authenticity of teacher self-reports and narratives.
4.3. Walking the talk
Walking the talk studies are intended to explore how teachers’ thoughts are put in practice (plans, designs, or
intentions). Its key feature is intentionality: capturing what teachers want to do (which can inform us about teacher
professionalism or expertise). A typical approach would be to ask participants about what they planned before enacting
it in practice, and to explain beforehand the desired outcomes. By keeping a close focus on this process, it is possible
to expect that these studies will appraise planning before the action has taken place and offer a comparison between
the plans and performance to reveal their fit or alignment with the intended outcome.
Kaminski (2003), for example, studied the mathematics lesson plans of six student teachers and held post-
questionnaire interviews with them after they had taught six or seven lessons to students. The student teachers had
considered a broad range of issues when delivering mathematics learning experiences to the children. Kaminski reported
on plans or intentions that the student teachers mentioned after they had actually had given the lesson, and the results
showed that half the students were interested in more than just technical considerations. Our concern here is whether
such a study design closely captures the real anticipated plans (before action), distinguishing it from the student teach-
ers’ awareness of realized plans once the action has been completed (after action). The difficulty is that reconstruction
of plans to fit reality is not the same as intentions being realized. A close measure of walking the talk would mean
to acknowledge temporality; that is, to study mathematics planning lessons before the actors were submerged in the
constraints of practice. Plans evaluated after an action could interfere with experiences provided from the action.
Likewise, Ethell and McMeniman (2000) studied student teachers’ beliefs about planning. They showed a simulated
recall interview of an expert teacher on video to these students in which the expert teacher was asked ‘to comment on
his objectives and intentions for the lesson and identify any particular influences on his planning and preparation’ (p.
91). The researchers subsequently interpreted pre-service teachers’ ideas about the expert teacher’s planning. Should
we assume, then, that pre-service teachers are reflecting and showing how they would prepare for action from their
evaluations of the expert teacher’s planning? Would it not have been better to evaluate the student teachers’ accounts
about how they prepared for their practice, such as unit objectives, or to ask what they thought before performing
the lesson? Unlike Kaminski’s (2003) study, however, student teachers did analyze the actual practice, albeit a voiced
practice and ‘within a comparative framework provided by expert teacher’s reflections and practice’. Again, this would
constitute a contrived and limited setting to express planning beliefs, although it is possible to maintain that the setting
is staged so that it is possible to explore specific reactions to, in this case, expert planning. By watching the video
record, this study enabled putting together plans and actions. Both the Kaminski (2003) and Ethell and McMeniman
(2000) research appraised teachers’ planning beliefs afterwards, directly relating them to executed task performance
(a lesson given), which, no doubt, helps achieve closeness to the object of study (satisfying the domain-specific feature
of intentionality).
In contrast, Conway’s (2001) study did evaluate teacher anticipations before they faced practice. He conducted a
course in which ‘Interns were asked to graphically depict, write and then talk about their anticipated and remembered
teaching experiences’ (p. 93) so that they could become aware of their future-oriented reflections. A story line method
was used to graph ‘actual experience; anticipations . . . from the point of where they commenced the internship
year’. Student teachers reported their levels of comfort during the internship year. The study captures prospective
reflections and evaluates anticipations to compare them with the actual experiences about performance. Given our
concern about the closeness of the alignment between ideas before planning (walking the talk), it seems important to
include appraised ‘anticipations’ from the start and beforehand to provide the content against which the experience can
be revealed. Therefore, evaluating studies in the domain of ‘walking the talk’ shows that what is needed is non-contrived
measurement, that is, a non-invented or artificial reconstruction of plans.
Based on the research reviewed, at least two related solutions are offered.
- Solution (a) studying plans and intentions are appraised in their natural temporal order (before the action commences,
through written plans and designs).
- Solution (b) looking for discrepancies: that is, comparing differences between plans and practices.
Both solutions contribute to capturing intentionality, which can be achieved in different ways (see Ethell &
McMeniman, 2000 and Conway, 2001) by studying the specific content of actual plans rather than generic reactions
or anticipations. Action research projects (Levin & Rock, 2003; Wetzstein & Hacker, 2004) constitute non-contrived
settings to achieve this.
4.4. Walking the walk
Focusing on action, ‘the walk’ means registering what takes place in professional performance. Typical methods
of collecting data in registering walking the walk are video or audio tape records of observation and field notes.
Specifically, Ethell and McMeniman (2000) and Mulder et al. (2004) use the video/tape approach; Barton et al. (2004),
Levin and Rock (2003), John (2002), Eick and Dias (2005), Tillema (2000, 2005a,b), Tillema and Verberg (2002) use
field notes, and Burbank and Kauchak (2003) combine video/tapes and field notes. In this type of research teacher
lessons, professional meetings, or instructional activities are observed to determine inductively whether particular
stages or teaching elements are present in teaching. Findings on activity usually appear in relation to other measures
with regard to thinking processes, such as beliefs or reflections. Therefore, researchers need to be ’respectful’ to their
object of study, not only by informing them about how closely other data are to the action, but also about how the
results are derived from the data.
Burbank and Kauchak (2003) conducted a collaborative action research program with 10 pre-service and 10 super-
vising teachers (dyads). Pre-service teachers were assigned to teach a topic of their choice and collaborate with their
supervising teachers to determine the main issues in their practice teaching. The researchers ‘used formal and informal
observations, interviews, and artifacts collected throughout the course’ (p. 505). Afterwards the researchers deter-
mined conversation themes derived from the data (with regard to teaching, research, communication, professional
development, and willingness to engage in action research projects). Both formal and informal observations from each
dyad were used in a bottom-up analysis. To understand emergent themes, it is important to determine whether they
successfully represent what was sought in the collaborative action research project in order to ratify the previously
established goals. No specific analysis of observation data is offered, however. The findings then may ‘just’ talk about
the walk, and may not ‘closely’ represent the walk (with statements like: ‘I believe that the only way to motivate
teachers to do anything . . . is to make it a part of the teaching culture’ (p. 507). Such statements do not represent any
specific information about actions.
Tillema (2000) tried to represent action more directly. He compared the teaching beliefs, activity, and level of reflec-
tion for two groups of student teachers with different educational backgrounds. For the activity he used a performance
checklist to appraise 36 pre-service teachers’ self-directed behaviours in teaching during a lesson in their practice
period. The checklist identified five lesson activities: (a) diagnosis of prior knowledge; (b) introduction of new subject
matter; (c) exploration and inquiry of the subject matter; (d) representation of what is learned; and (e) summarizing
the lesson. Each activity was divided into 17 specific categories. To score each teacher’s performance, the researcher
noted the presence of each behaviour on a three-point scale (present, moderately present, and clearly present). The
behavioural checklist ‘was completed twice for each student teacher (two of their lessons were observed)’ (p. 581). In
this way, the researcher tried to assess teacher performance very carefully, reporting what was actually done for each of
the steps. Data were collected for different periods (practice teaching period and follow-up) in different groups. Thus,
Tillema’s study represents activity more closely because it compares and contrasts results with respect to performance.
Yet, the study can be criticized for the way it frames the action and for not observing what teachers naturally do.
John (2002) faced the framing problem by observing two teacher educators’ lessons and meeting them afterwards at
their workplace; his research included 38 h of direct contact with the participants. John aimed to describe the teachers’
experiences, assumptions, and expertise in the course of their teaching. The researcher ‘included in the notes detailed
portraits of the tutors’ actions; the reconstructions, as accurately as possible, of the different types of dialogue . . .
description of the physical setting . . . as well as a recording of the researcher hunches, impressions and reflective
comments’ (p. 326). The analysis section of the study included time-ordered narratives derived from a previous set of
interviews (biographical approach) as well as field notes, and analyzed them with content analysis. Finally, in the inter-
pretation section, John (2002) introduced four core dimensions that characterize teacher educators’ practical knowledge.
These include: intentionality, practicality, subject specificity, and ethicality. The study closely matches walking the
walk because it uses natural situations and reports specific findings from action: types of dialogue, physical setting, etc.
We would have expected that activity itself would have been distinguished from what was related during the
interviews, and consequently, what was thought (in reflections) would have been compared with what was done (in
action). Such a comparison could have introduced consistency in the findings. In this regard Eick and Dias’ (2005)
work is of interest because they used electronic postings, memo-writing, observer notes, videotapes, and reflexive
summaries to study student teachers’ co-teaching of science classes with one in-service teacher (for 12 weeks). The
notes taken from practice ‘included the nature of the lesson, context of the classroom, and abilities/difficulties of the
methods students in implementing inquiry-based lessons. . . . The instructor observed each methods student taking
the lead in co-teaching at least four times’ (p. 477). Written descriptions from the observations were condensed in a
matrix of observations that describes teacher practice from the beginning to the end of the semester. Thus, the ‘evidence
of a practice (matrix) was juxtaposed with thinking about practice (categorized postings) in developing theoretical
constructions (concepts) from this study’ (p. 478). The data obtained from this analysis yielded three major teaching
concepts: (a) movement from cultural acclimation to reflection; (b) thinking through experience; and (c) integration
of knowledge and experience. Like John’s research (2002), this study’s wealth of detail is linked to a comparison of
what teachers did with what they thought about their practice. The study by Eick and Dias posited a very structured
tool to appraise action (a matrix tracing observations), along with rigorous analysis.
To establish quality criteria for studies on walking the walk, we discovered that staying close to action may be
enhanced by adding a wealth of detail to the object of study, assuring authenticity in the natural setting being studied.
The research discussed above tried to derive ‘natural’ results from the action itself rather than by collecting data
intermingled with other processes (reflection after action, beliefs, etc.). This study design is close to evaluating direct
displays of activity.
5. Discussion and implications
In our review of the design of studies on teaching we had two main objectives: how do studies ‘closely’ capture
teacher talk and walk (that is, teacher reflection and action), and what specific criteria can be derived from these studies
to establish quality standards in conducting research (that is, measuring teaching processes ‘closely’).
In pursuit of our first aim, we looked at several studies that partly told the story of teaching—as talking the talk,
walking the talk, talking the walk, or walking the walk. Research on teacher action and reflection has been undertaken
in separate domains and from distinct perspectives. Most of the work is in the domain of talking the talk, with the
fewest having been done on walking the walk. This means that the empirical studies have concentrated more on
representational processes (teachers’ beliefs and their reflections on action) than on presentational ones (professional
performance itself). What is evident from this review is the difficulty of bridging the world of talk and walk (either by
studying walking the talk or talking the walk). There is still a danger that current research bifurcates our understanding
of teaching without integrating it; it tells only one-quarter of the story, while not representing what is actually done.
This problem exists with respect to the four domains of study, categorized as follows.
(a) Talking the talk: The purpose of such studies is to gain understanding about teaching, without telling the researcher
what he/she expects to hear. The main focus in this type of study is to reveal teacher beliefs. To gain understanding
of teaching beliefs, a more reliable and valid criterion of non-restrictiveness or non-framing would help lessen the
likelihood of re-iterating the researcher’s construction of understanding. If a study offers pre-determined responses
or closed-content questions, it can limit understandings, providing pre-selected ways of thinking about teaching.
(b) Walking the talk: The purpose of these studies is to capture teacher intentionality as reflections before action. It
may be that such studies neglect the teacher’s sense of purpose and the embedded meaning of actions. Recognizing
temporality in actions and discrepancy between plans and their realization are important criteria in setting up a
study. When talking about plans or prospective reflections, plans may be reconstructed from a post-active moment,
that is, after the action has been completed. Therefore, understandings from the action that are discussed afterwards
may be different from teachers’ initial conceptualization of the action.
(c) Talking the walk: Studies that fit this category aim to build teacher knowledge or collect (personal) theories about
teaching. The issue here is that these may be non-authentic, non-representational accounts of actions (they may
have a remote action reference). One criterion that could be used would be how recent the real, direct experience
was: differentiating among studies dealing with life experiences, professional experiences in general, or directly
dealing with professional practice experiences. When participants are asked to talk about what they did recently,
it would help to talk about authentic experiences rather than appraising reflections on a personal experience that
has nothing in common with action.
(d) Walking the walk: The purpose of such studies is to give a situated account of activity. The issue here is a possible
loss of specificity as a result of restricting data collection. These studies are most difficult to conduct because they
require a wealth of data collection methods and a careful analysis of different data sources. We have not been able
to identify many studies in this domain, nor have we been able to determine a number of strategies that can analyze
teacher activity in action.
The problems related to capturing the process of teaching suggest that it will be necessary to determine potential
criteria for scrutinizing and evaluating an empirical approach to the study of teaching. Our search and review suggests
three main areas of concern when designing research on teaching processes:
(a) selection of instruments,

(b) analysis and coverage of data,
(c) integration of findings.
5.1.1. Selection of instruments to cover the gaps
Instruments to collect data must be designed so that they can fill the gaps between the domains (between reflective
thought and action). That would allow researchers to study them in a connected way. Although it is possible to work with
a separate account of each process, eventually the set of instruments will need to (at least in part) enable overlapping
or linking of the data to develop a full account of beliefs, plans, actions, and reflections. Our review indicates that
often there is less focus on actual practice simply because there is a lack of research methods that cover practice.
That is, instruments need to be included that can systematically study practice itself, which would increase the link to
reflections. It is possible that researchers’ comparative lack of attention to action is because they do not have sufficient
instruments to measure it. Instruments are cultural tools that mediate research in two ways: researchers can improve
the ease and efficacy of their activities, and the particular tool used can transform a user’s thoughts. This means that
research tools are as necessary for unfolding action as for comprehending it.
5.1.2. Mutual coverage of studies to link the parts
To gain insights about teacher talk and walk, the research needs to ‘follow the story’. This can be done in part by
using triangulation or mixed methods, but what is also needed is to set up the research within a domain along similar
lines to pursue the processes studied as a whole over time. Much of the research is still poorly connected and does not
build on results, or does so in only a piecemeal manner. One fruitful path could be to think about lines or strands of
research that use similar methods and approaches.
5.1.3. Alignment of instruments to increase accuracy
The instruments selected need to be appropriate for the purpose: they should be suitable to study each domain
and resolve the main issues. For example, in assessing reflection it could be more useful to gather information from
self-reported accounts by teachers than to use open questions. Even when performing action research, if instruments
are used in isolation (beliefs in one, reflections in another, with all loosely coupled to performance), interpreting the
implications can be difficult. And in reporting the findings, it is unreasonable to expect teachers to integrate what we
as researchers are not able to do ourselves.
Thus, we have found that obtaining consistent knowledge about teaching in the four main domains of research on
teaching is not without its problems. Many of the issues relate to the close alignment of the instrument design in studies
that configure the nature of the object under study.
In conducting this meta-analytical study, our specific intention was to study the relation between the research
question and the method of study to detect ‘best’ solutions or standards to capture the ‘dynamic’ relationship between
reflection and action. For this purpose we constructed an analytical framework, which we imposed on the research
literature. We were aware that our search for standards entailed assessing studies from a perspective that was different
than the researchers of the studies had intended. But we do not mean to suggest that these studies should have ‘done
something else’ or were wrongly conducted. It was our intention to follow a searchlight strategy that would inform the
researchers’ debate on data collection in research on teacher reflection and action. We deliberately chose our ‘neutral’
analytical framework to ensure a common ground, rather than to interfere with the plurality of conceptual bases that
guide the ongoing research, although we remain aware that our findings may have implications for the theory–methods
relationships that guide future research studies.
A major implication of our findings is that conducting research on reflection and action can be informed by using
the standard of closeness; that is, how closely a research object is linked to instruments and methods that capture the
relationship under study. Using the analytical framework, we were able to show that the object of research belongs
to one of the four cells for ‘talk’ and ‘walk’ in teaching. Each category has a specific set of standards that further
highlights closeness as the overall criterion: the closeness criterion is specified differently in each of the four cells.
Table 2
Overview of nature of studies and criteria found for closeness in data collection in each of the different domains in studying reflection and action
The process measured The object studied
The talk (thinking) The walk (action)
Talking (what teachers say) Talking the talk—reported thinking Talking the walk—reported action
Nature of studies Nature of studies
Description of beliefs Unfolding life experiences
Reflective thinking Unfolding professional experience
Belief—practice relationships Unfolding experiences in practice
Criteria found Criteria found
Non-framing Contextual, categorized data collection
Non-restrictive data collection Recollection and reconstruction of experience
Not imposing constraints Non researcher mediated clarification and collection
of expository comments
In depth description
Walking (what teachers do) Walking the talk—recorded thinking Walking the walk—recorded action
Nature of studies Nature of studies
Designed research Collaborative action research
Planned action studies Participant observation
Discrepancy studies
Criteria found Criteria found
Intentionality realized Immersion into process
Directness or closeness to process Respectfulness to ongoing activity
Authentic, non-contrived measurement Informal data collection
Naturalistic inquiry and wealth of detail
- Talking the talk: non-framing

- Talking the walk: authenticity
- Walking the talk: intentionality
- Walking the walk: situatedness
Table 2 summarizes these criteria for each of the cells in more detail.
The overview presented in Table 2 allows for reviewing methods of data collection for appropriateness in studying
reflection and action. It is not intended to be a guideline for conducting research, since it is up to researchers (preferably
in co-construction with teachers) to design their own studies and build solutions for adequate and appropriate data
collection—in intelligent, creative, and coherently conceptual ways. There is no ‘should’ in research (only search).
Nevertheless, we may conclude that closeness as a criterion can guide researchers in valuing their approaches to data
collection.
Appendix A. Overview of studies reviewed
Study Object of study Instrument Reliability. Validity Sample teachers Other professions
TT WT TW WW N Q O Y N Ins. An Pr T InsT TE Ungr Pgr Oth

NvT ExT
Fisher (2003) v v v
MacLellan (2004) v v v v
Mulder et al. (2004) v v v v v v v v
Kember et al. (1999) v v v v
Griffin (2003) v v v v v
Kaminski (2003) v v v v v v v v
Giovannelli (2003) v v v v
Mastrilli and v v v
Sardo-Brown
(2002)
Whipp (2003) v v v v
Price and Valli (2005) v v v v v v v
Barton et al. (2004) v v v v v v v
Wetzstein and Hacker v v v v
(2004)
Braun and Crumpler v v v v
(2004)
Kember and Leung v v v v
(2000)
Shireen and Czerniak v v v v
(2003)
Henson (2001) v v v v v v
Clegg et al. (2002) v v v v v v
Kajane (2003) v v v v
Levin and Rock v v v v v v v v v v v
(2003)
Garmon (2004) v v v v
Husu and Tirri (2004) v v v v
Hashweh (2003) v v v v
John, 2002 v v v v v v v
Meijer et al. (2002) v v v v v v v v
Zeek et al. (2001) v v v v
Baxter Magolda v v v v v
(2004)
Smith (2005) v v v v v
Appendix A (Continued )
Study Object of study Instrument Reliability. Validity Sample teachers Other professions
TT WT TW WW N Q O Y N Ins. An Pr T InsT TE Ungr Pgr Oth
NvT ExT
Clarke and v v v v
Jarvis-Selinger
(2005)
Eick and Dias (2005) v v v v v v v
Ward and McCotter v v v v
(2004)
Butler et al. (2004) v v v v
Ponte et al. (2004) v v v v v v v
Brownlee (2003) v v v v v
Burbank and Kauchak v v v v v v v v v
(2003)
Reiman (1999) v v v v
VanSliedrecht (2002) v v v v v v v
Christenson et al. v v v v v v v v
(2002)
Ethell and v v v v v v
McMeniman
(2000)
Conway (2001) v v v v
Jay and Johnson v v v v
(2002)
Tillema (2000) v v v v v v v v v v
Smith and Tillema v v v v v v
(2001)
Smith and Tillema v v v v
(2003)
Tillema and Knol v v v v v v v v v
(1997)
Tillema and v v v v
Kremer-Hayon
(2002)
Kremer-Hayon and v v v v
Tillema (1999)
Tillema (2005a) v v v v v v v v v
Orland-Barak and v v v v v v v v v
Tillema (2006)
Tillema (2005b) v v v v
Tillema and Verberg, v v v v v v v v
2002
Totals 24 6 28 11 29 32 16 19 31 21 5 23 2 14 12 5 1 4
Object of study: TT, talking the talk; WT, walking the talk or prospective reflection; TW, talking the walk or retrospective reflection; WW, walking
the walk. Instrument: N, self-narrations or accounts; Q, questioning; O, observation. Reliability: Y, given; N, not given. Validity: Ins, use of different
instruments; An, use of different data analysis procedures (both qualitative and quantitative). Sample: PrT, pre-service teachers; InT, in-service
teachers; NvT, novice teachers (less than 5 years of experience); ExT, expert teachers (more than 5 years of experience). Te, teacher educators.
Others: Ungr, undergraduates; Pogr, post-graduates; Oth, other professions, i.e. nurses, doctors, engineers, etc.
References
Abell, S. K., Bryan, L. A., & Anderson, M. A. (1998). Investigating pre-service elementary teacher education: A case from the United States.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 7, 119–136.
Alexander, P. A. (2005). Teaching towards expertise. British Journal of Education Psychology Monograph Series II, 3, 29–45.
Barnes, L. V. (Ed.). (2004). Contemporary teaching and teacher issues. New York: Nova Publishers.
Barton, K. C., McCully, A. W., & Marks, M. J. (2004). Reflecting in elementary children’s understanding of history and social studies. An inquiry
project with beginning teachers in Northern Ireland and The United States. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(1), 70–90.
Bates, M. J. (1979). Information search tactics. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 30, 205–214.
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2004). Evolution of a constructivist conceptualization of epistemological reflection. Educational Psychologist, 39(1), 31–43.
Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and mind in the knowledge age. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum associates.
Bor Ng, K. (2002). Toward a theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between situated action and planned action models of
behaviour in information retrieval contexts: Contributions from phenomenology. Information Processing and Management, 38, 613–626.
Borko, H., & Putnam, R. (1996). Learning to teach. In P. Berliner, & R. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 673–708). NY:
MacMillan.
Braun, J. A., & Crumpler, T. P. (2004). The social memoir: An analysis of developing reflective ability in a pre-service methods course. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 20, 59–75.
Bryan, L. A., & Atwater, M. M. (2002). Teacher beliefs and cultural models: A challenge for science teacher preparations programs. Science Teacher
Education, 86, 821–839.
Brownlee, J. (2003). Changes in primary school teachers’ beliefs about knowing: A longitudinal study. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education,
31(1), 87–98.
Buck, G. A., & Cordes, J. G. (2005). An action research project on preparing teachers to meet the needs of underserved student populations. Journal
of Science Teacher Education, 16, 43–64.
Bullough, R. V., Jr., & Pinnegar, S. (2001). Guidelines fpr quality in autobiographical forms of self study. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 13–22.
Burbank, M. D., & Kauchak, D. (2003). An alternative model for professional development: Investigate into effective collaboration. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 19, 499–514.
Burke Johnson, R., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Mixed method research, a research paradigm whose time has come. Educational Researcher,
33(7), 14–27.
Butler, D. L., Launscher, H. N., Jarvis-Selinger, S., & Beckingham, B. (2004). Collaboration and self-regulation in teachers’ professional development.
Calderhead, J. (1989). Reflective teaching and teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 5, 43–51.
Calderhead, J., & Robson, M. (1991). Images of teaching: Student teachers’ early conceptions of classroom practice. Teaching and Teacher Education,
7, 1–8.
Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1983). Becoming critical: Knowing through action research. Waurn Ponds, Vic: Deakin University Press.
Christenson, M., Slutsky, R., Bendau, S., Covert, J., Dyer, J., Risko, G., et al. (2002). The rocky road of teachers becoming action researchers.
Clark, C. M. (1988). Asking the right questions about teacher preparation: Contributions of research on teaching thinking. Educational Researcher,
17(2), 5–12.
Clark, C. M. (2001). Talking shop: Authentic conversation and teacher learning. New York: Teacher College Press.
Clark, C. M., & Hollingsworth, H. (2002). Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 947–967.
Clarke, A., & Jarvis-Selinger, S. (2005). What the teaching perspectives of cooperating teachers tell us about their advisory practices. Teaching and
Clegg, S., Tan, J., & Saedi, S. (2002). Reflecting or acting? Reflective practice and continuing professional development in higher education.
Reflective Practice, 3(1), 131–146.
Cochran-Smith, M. (2004). Walking the road: Race diversity, and social justice in teacher education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Fries, M. (2002). Sticks, stones and ideology. The discourse of reform in teacher education. Educational Researcher, 30(8),
3–15.
Cochran-Smith, M., & Zeichner, K. M. (2005). Studying Teacher education; report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education. Mahwah:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Conle, C. (2000). Narrative inquiry. Research tool and medium for professional development. European journal of Teacher Education, 23(1), 49–63.
Connely, F. M., & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry. Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2–14.
Conway, P. F. (2001). Anticipatory reflection while learning to teach: From a temporally truncated to a temporally distributed model of reflection in
teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 89–106.
Crocco, M. S., Faithfull, B., & Schwartz. (2003). Inquiring minds want to know. Action research at New York city professional development school.
Journal of Teacher Education, 54(1), 19–30.
Darling Hammond, L., & Youngs, P. (2002). Defining high quality teachers, what does scientifically based research actually tell us. Educational
Researcher, 31(9), 13–25.
Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8),
597–604.
Day, C. (1997). In service teacher education in Europe: Conditions and themes for development in the 21ST century. British Journal of In-Service
Education, 23(1), 39–54.
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education. An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: The MacMillan Co.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: D.C. Heath.
Doyle, W., & Carter, K. (2003). Narrative and learning to teach: Implications for teacher education curriculum. Journal of Curriculum Studies,
35(82), 129–137.
Edwards, A., Gilroy, P., & Hartley, D. (2002). Rethinking teacher education, collaborative responses to uncertainty. London: Routledge, Falmer
press.
Eick, C., & Dias, M. (2005). Building the authority of experience in communities of practice: The development of pre-service teachers’ practical
knowledge through co-teaching in inquiry classrooms. Science Teacher Education, 89, 470–491.
Elliot, J., Barret, G., & Hull, C. (1986). La investigación/acción en el aula. Valencia: Consellerı́a de Cultura, Educació i Ciencia.
Ethell, R. G., & McMeniman, M. M. (2000). Unlocking the knowledge in action of an expert practitioner. Journal of Teacher Education, 51, 87–101.
Feiman-Nemser, S. (2001). Helping novices learn to teach: Lessons from an exemplary support teacher. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(1), 17–30.
Fendler, L. (2003). Teacher reflection in a hall of mirrors, historical influences and political reverberations. Educational Researcher, 32(3), 16–25.
Fisher, K. (2003). Demystifying critical reflection: Defining criteria for assessment. Higher Education Research & Development, 22(3), 314–325.
Frederiksen, J. R., & Collins, A. (1989). A system approach to educational testing. Educational Researcher, 18, 27–32.
Gallagher, K., & Bailey, J. (2000). The politics of teacher education reform; strategic philanthropy and public policy making. Educational Policy,
14(1), 11–24.
Garmon, M. A. (2004). Changing preservice teachers’ attitudes/beliefs about diversity. What are the critical factors? Journal of Teacher Education,
55(3), 201–213.
Giovannelli, M. (2003). Relationship between reflective disposition toward teaching and effective teaching. The Journal of Educational Research,
96(5), 293–309.
Gore, J. M., & Zeichner, K. M. (1991). Action research and reflective teaching in pre-service teacher education: A case study from the United States.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 7(2), 119–136.
Greenman, N., & Dieckmann, J. A. (2004). Considering critically and culture as pivotal in transformative teacher education. Journal of Teacher
Education, 55(3), 240–255.
Greeno, J. G. (1989). Situations, mental models and generative knowledge. In D. Klahr, & K. Kotovsky (Eds.), Complex information processing
(pp. 285–328). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Griffin, M. L. (2003). Using critical incidents to promote and assess reflective thinking in pre-service teachers. Reflective Practice, 4(2), 207–220.
Grossman, P. (2005). In M. Cochran-Smith, & K. M. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education; report of the AERA panel on research and teacher
education. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Halpern, D. (2002). Thought and knowledge (4th ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Hamilton, M. L., & Pinnegar, S. (1998). The value and promise of self-study. In M. L. Hamilton (Ed.), Reconceptualizing teaching practice (pp.
235–246). London: Falmer Press.
Haritos, C. (2004). Understanding teaching through the minds of teacher candidates: A curious blend of realism and idealism. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 20, 637–654.
Hashweh, M. Z. (2003). Teacher accommodative change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19, 421–434.
Henson, R. K. (2001). The effects of participation in teacher research on teacher efficacy. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 819–836.
Husu, J. (2003). Tell me about your work and I tell you about your knowledge: Constructing teacher knowledge based on pedagogical practices.
Paper presented at the 11th Biennal Conference of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching. Leiden, The Netherlands,
June 27–July 1.
Husu, J., & Tirri, K. (2004). A case study approach to study one teacher’s moral reflection. Teaching and Teacher Education, 19, 345–357.
Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Izumi, L., & Evers, W. (2002). Teacher quality. Palo Alto, CA: Hoover Institution.
Jalongo, M. R., & Isemberg, J. O. (1995). Teachers’ stories: From personal narrative to professional insight. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Jay, J. K., & Johnson, K. L. (2002). Capturing complexity: A typology of reflective practice for teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education,
18, 73–85.
John, P. D. (2002). The teacher educator’s experience: Case studies of practical professional knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18,
323–341.
Kagan, D. M. (1992). Professional growth among preservice and beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 62(2), 129–171.
Kajane, A. (2003). Structure and content: The relationship between reflective judgment and laypeople’s viewpoints. Journal of Adult Development,
10(3), 173–188.
Kaminski, E. (2003). Promoting pre-service teacher education student’s reflective practice in mathematics. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education,
31(1), 21–32.
Kane, R., Sandretto, S., & Heath, C. (2002). Telling half the story: A critical review of research on the teaching beliefs and practices of university
academics. Review of Educational Research, 72(2), 177–228.
Kelchtermans, G. (2005). Professional commitment beyond contract: Teachers’ self-understanding, vulnerability and reflection, Bi-annual meeting
of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT). Sydney, Australia.
Kember, D., & Leung, D. Y. P. (2000). Development of a questionnaire to measure the level of reflective thinking. Assessment & Evaluation in
Higher Education, 25(4), 382–395.
Kember, D., Jones, A., Loke, A., Mckay, J., Sinclair, K., Tse, H., et al. (1999). Determining the level of reflective thinking from students’ written
journals using a coding scheme based on the work of Mezirow. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 18(1), 18–30.
Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (1988). In S. Kemmis, & R. McTaggart (Eds.), The action research planner (3rd ed.). Victoria: Deakin University.
King, P. M., & Kitchener, K. S. (2004). Reflective judgment: Theory and research on the development of epistemic assumptions through adulthood.
Educational Psychologist, 39(1), 5–18.
Korthagen, F. A. J. (2000). De organisatie in balans, reflectie en intuı̈tie als complementaire processen. Management en Organisatie, 54(3), 36–52.
Korthagen, F. A. (2002). Linking practice and theory; the pedagogy of realistic teacher education. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kremer-Hayon, L., & Tillema, H. H. (1999). Self-regulated learning in the context of teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(5),
507–522.
LaBoskey, V. (1994). Development of reflective practice. New York: Teachers college press.
Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Leinhardt, G. (1988). Situated knowledge and expertise in teaching. In J. Calderhead (Ed.), Teachers’ professional learning (pp. 146–168). London:
Press.
Levin, B. B., & Rock, T. C. (2003). The effects of collaborative action research on pre-service and experienced teacher partners in professional
development schools. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(2), 135–149.
Lieberman. (1995). Practices that support teacher development: Transforming conceptions of professional learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8),
591–596.
Littlejohn, A. H. (2000). Improving continuing professional development in the use of ICT. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18, 166–174.
Loughran, J. (2005). Researching teaching about teaching, self study of teacher education practices. Studying Teacher Education, 1(1), 5–16.
Loughran, J., & Berry, A. (2005). Modelling by teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 193–203.
MacLellan, E. (2004). How reflective is the academic essay? Studies in Higher Education, 29(1), 76–89.
Mastrilli, T., & Sardo-Brown, D. (2002). Novice teachers’ cases: A vehicle for reflective practice. Education, 123(1), 56–62.
Maxwell, J. A. (2004). Causal explanation, qualitative research and scientific inquiry in education. Educational Researcher, 33(2), 3–12.
Maxwell, J. A., & Loomis, D. M. (2003). Mixed method design. In A. Tashakkori, & C. Teddlie (Eds.), Handbook of mixed methods in social and
behavioural research (pp. 241–272). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
McLaren, P. (2000). Teaching against globalization an the new imperialism: Toward a revolutionary pedagogy. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(2),
136–150.
McNiff, J. (1988). Action research: Principles and practice. London: Macmillan Education, Ltd.
Meijer, P. C., Zanting, A., & Verloop, N. (2002). How can student teachers elicit experienced teachers’ practical knowledge? Tools, suggestions,
and significance. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(5), 406–419.
Mezirow, J. (1992). Transformation theory: Critique and confusion. Adult Education Quaterly, 42(4), 250–252.
Milner, R. (2005). Stability and change in US prospective teachers’ beliefs and decisions about diversity and learning to teach. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 21, 767–786.
Mulder, I., Swaak, J., & Kessels, J. (2004). In search of reflective behavior and shared understanding in ad hoc expert teams. Cyber Phychology &
Behavior, 7(2), 141–154.
Orland-Barak, L., & Tillema, H. H. (2006). Collaborative knowledge construction; the dark side of the moon. Teachers & Teaching, 12(1), 1–12.
Ponte, P., Ax, J., Beijaard, D., & Wubbels, T. (2004). Teacher’s development of professional knowledge trough action research and the facilitation
of this by teachers’ educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 571–588.
Price, J. N., & Valli, L. (2005). Preservice teachers becoming agents of change. Pedagogical implications for action research. Journal of Teacher
Education, 56(1), 57–72.
Reiman, A. J. (1999). The evolution of the social role-taking and guided reflection framework in teacher education: Recent theory and quantitative
synthesis of research. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 597–612.
Richardson, V. (1997). Constructivist teacher education; building a world of new understandings. London: Falmer Press.
Richardson, V. (2001). In V. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Educational Research
Association.
Samaras, P. A. (2002). Self-study for teacher educators: Crafting a pedagogy for educational change. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Schiff, L. R., Van House, N. A., & Butler, M. H. (1997). Understanding complex information environments. In Proceedings of the ACM Digital
Libraries conference on Digital Libraries’97 (pp. 161–186).
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Schutz, A. (1962). Collected papers: Vol. 1,. The Hague: M. Nijhoff.
Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 19(2), 4–14.
Smith, K. (2005). Teacher educator’s expertise: What do novice teachers and teachers educators say? Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 177–192.
Smith, K., & Tillema, H. (2001). Long-term influence of portfolios on professional development. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research,
45(2), 183–203.
Smith, K., & Tillema, H. (2003). Clarifying different types of portfolio use. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(6), 626–648.
Shireen, J. M., & Czerniak, C. M. (2003). Study of science teachers’ attitudes toward and beliefs about collaborative reflective practice. Journal of
Science Teacher Education, 14(2), 75–96.
Suchman, L. (1994). Do categories have politics? The language/action perspective reconsidered. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2(3),
177–190.
Snow-Gerono, J. L. (2005). Professional development in a culture of inquiry: PDS teachers identity the benefits of professional learning communities.
Tickle, L. (2001). Professional qualities and teacher induction. Journal of In-Service Education, 27(1), 51–64, 214–228.
Tillema, H. H. (2000). Belief change towards self-directed learning in student teachers. Immersion in practice or reflection on action. Teaching and
Tillema, H. H. (2005a). Collaborative knowledge construction in study teams of professionals. Human Resource Development International, 8(1),
81–99.
Tillema, H. H. (2005b). Teacher educators’ dilemmas: Constructing pedagogical understanding in teaching student teachers. In L. V. Barnes (Ed.),
Contemporary teaching and teacher issues (pp. 119–140). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Tillema, H. H., & Knol, W. E. (1997). Promoting student teacher learning through conceptual change or direct instruction. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 13(6), 579–595.
Tillema, H., & Kremer-Hayon, L. (2002). Practising What We Preach”—teacher educators’ dilemmas in promoting self-regulated learning: A cross
case comparison. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(5), 593–607.
Tillema, H. H., & Verberg, C. (2002). Recognizing competence-evaluation of an alternative teacher licensing assessment program. Studies in
Educational Evaluation, 28, 297–313.
Tobin, K., & McRobbie, C. J. (1996). Cultural myths as constraints to the enacted science curriculum. Science Education, 80, 223–241.
Tomlinson, P., Dockrell, J., & Winne, P. (2005). Pedagogy-teaching for learning. Monograph series II. British Journal of Educational Psychology,
(3), 1–171.
Uhlenbeck, A. M., Verloop, N., & Beijaard, D. (2002). Requirements for assessment procedure for beginning teachers: Implications from recent
theories on teaching and assessment. Teachers College Record, 104(2), 242–272.
VanSliedrecht, B. A. (2002). Fifth graders investigating history in the classroom: Results from a researcher-practitioner design experiment. The
Elementary School Journal, 103(2), 132–160.
Van Manen, M. (1977). Linking ways of knowing to ways of being practical. Curriculum Inquiry, 6(3), 205–228.
Van Manen, M. (1995). Episemology of reflective practice. Teachers and teaching: Theory and practice, 1(1), 33–50.
Wallace, M. (1991). “Training foreign language teachers. A reflective approach”. Cambridge University Press.
Wang, J., & Odell, S. J. (2002). Mentored learning to teach according to standards based reform, a critical review. Review of Educational Research,
72(3), 481–546.
Ward, J. R., & McCotter, S. S. (2004). Reflection as a visible outcome for pre-service teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 243–257.
Wetzstein, A., & Hacker, W. (2004). Reflective verbalization improves solutions. The effects of question-based reflection in design problem solving.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 145–156.
Whipp, J. (2003). Scaffolding critical reflection in online discussions. Helping prospective teachers think deeply about field experiences in Urban
Schools. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(4), 321–333.
Windschilt, M. (2002). Framing constructivism in practice as the negotiations of dilemmas. Review of Educational Research, 72(2), 131–177.
Zeek, C., Foote, M., & Walker, C. (2001). Teacher stories and transactional inquiry. Hearing the voices of mentor teachers. Journal of Teacher
Education, 52(5), 377–385.

Reflective Teacher

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Reflective Teacher

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Educational Research Review 1 (2006) 112–132

Studying studies on teacher reflection and action:

Keywords: Teacher reflection; Research on teaching; Qualitative methodology; Inquiry; Meta-analysis

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +31 72 5273388; fax: +31 71 5273619.

The talk (thinking) The walk (action)

2.1. Talking the talk

2.2. Talking the walk

2.3. Walking the talk

2.4. Walking the walk

4.1. Talking the talk

(a) descriptive studies of teacher beliefs and personal theories,

4.1.1. Descriptive studies of teacher beliefs

4.1.2. Reﬂective thinking

4.1.3. Relationship between beliefs and action

4.2. Talking the walk

1. Unfolding life experiences.

4.2.1. Unfolding life experiences

4.2.2. Unfolding professional experience

4.2.3. Unfolding experiences in practice

4.3. Walking the talk

4.4. Walking the walk

5. Discussion and implications

(a) selection of instruments,

5.1.1. Selection of instruments to cover the gaps

5.1.2. Mutual coverage of studies to link the parts

5.1.3. Alignment of instruments to increase accuracy

The talk (thinking) The walk (action)

- Talking the talk: non-framing

Appendix A. Overview of studies reviewed

TT WT TW WW N Q O Y N Ins. An Pr T InsT TE Ungr Pgr Oth

TT WT TW WW N Q O Y N Ins. An Pr T InsT TE Ungr Pgr Oth

You might also like