Exploring the Reflective Thinking of Teachers with Structured Unstandardised Network Cards

Abstract

This paper aims to use the methodological characteristics of ego-centred networks in studying teachers’ reflective thinking. This qualitative research illustrates how structured unstandardised network cards, including text corpora and visual elements, can be used in exploring the reflective thinking of a long-serving, experienced teacher. Structured unstandardised network cards ensured the openness of analysis through three factors: the undefined number of circles, the free association of topics concerning teachers’ activities, and comments on these topics. The basis of the analysis was a data-driven, inductive analysis of many concentric circles containing concepts and sectors and the text corpus of the commentary made during the creation of the network card. The reflections concerned the teacher’s career, position, and tasks in the institution. The results discovered the content nodes of reflective thinking, disclosed individual beliefs, and indicated the diversity of pedagogical knowledge. The concepts of ‘human’, ‘teacher’, ‘communication–cooperation’, and ‘renewal’ were included in a complex system by the network card sectors of ‘exercise’, ‘health’, ‘hobby’, ‘free time’, ‘soul’, and ‘family, friends, and colleagues’. Structured unstandardised network cards can explore teachers’ reflective thinking and broaden the research methodology of the topic.