Pre-service EFL teachers' perceived and actual reflectivity levels on reports written during practicum

Reflective thinking in teacher education programs has been considered one of main practices that enables pre-service teachers to think on the planning, implementation and evaluation processes of teaching. Besides, practicum experience supported with reflective tasks provides prospective teachers with an ample opportunity to put theoretical knowledge into practice. However, reflection manifests itself in certain levels, and perceived and actual reflectivity levels may not always match. Therefore, the present study investigates pre-service EFL teachers' perceived and actual levels of reflectivity on a variety of tasks assigned during their practicum. The quantitative data was collected from 70 pre-service teachers through the Profile of Reflective Thinking Instrument developed by Taggart and Wilson (2005). The qualitative data showing their actual levels of reflectivity, however, came from a total of 207 reflective tasks (namely 4 self-evaluation, 4 peer-evaluation, 14 weekly observation, and one overall evaluation reports) written by 9 of these pre-service teachers selected on the basis of scores they obtained on the instrument to represent technical, conceptual, and dialectical levels of reflectivity. The results showed that pre-service teachers' perceived levels of reflectivity were mostly at contextual level followed by dialectical and technical levels. However, in their reports they mostly focused on the description of their activities and objectives as well as technical issues like planning and time management, which made their reflections at technical level unlike their perceptions. Besides, their reflectivity has shown some variance depending on the type of task. In the overall evaluation reports in which they evaluated the practicum in response to some guiding questions they made more advanced level reflections. In light of these findings, the study discussed the importance of integrating awareness raising activities and reflective tasks to initial teacher education programs to improve pre-service teachers' actual reflectivity.