Predictors of preschool teachers' reflective thinking tendencies: Professional attitude and life satisfaction

Teaching involves many problems such as classroom management, individual differences, relationships with colleagues and administrators, educational issues, social pressures and moral dilemmas. Therefore, teachers should be technically competent, researching, critical thinking, self-critical and reflective individuals. In this study, it was examined whether preschool teachers' professional attitudes and life satisfaction predict their reflective thinking skills. The data of the study, which was designed in a relational survey design, one of the quantitative research methods, were collected from teachers who worked as preschool teachers in a public or private institution in the 2021-2022 academic year and participated in the study voluntarily. "Personal Information Form", "Teacher Reflective Thinking Disposition Scale", "Attitude Towards Teaching Profession Scale" and "Life Satisfaction Scale" were used as data collection tools. In the analysis of the data obtained from 399 preschool teachers who voluntarily participated in the study, independent groups t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed to determine whether teachers' reflective thinking tendency differed according to demographic characteristics. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to determine whether preschool teachers' attitudes towards profession and life satisfaction predicted reflective thinking disposition. As a result of the analyses, it was found that professional attitude and life satisfaction explained 22% of the change in reflective thinking disposition. In addition, while it was seen that preschool teachers' reflective thinking tendency differed significantly according to their feeling of belonging to the school, it was found that there was no significant difference according to the variables of gender, current age range, marital status, working age range, number of children in the class, seniority, in-service training status, number of in-service training and reflective thinking training status.