Indonesian novice EFL teachers' understanding of and engagement in reflective practice: An exploratory study

Reflective practice, its benefits and role in teaching have received much scholarly attention. Although
several studies investigated the reflective practice concept in many contexts from several perspectives,
not many studies have explored how it is understood among practising teachers. The number of studies
exploring reflective practice in the Indonesian context is even smaller. Hence, this thesis aimed to
investigate how Indonesian novice EFL teachers understood and engaged in the concept. In this regard,
the current study set its research context as two cities in West Java, Indonesia. This study took a
qualitative exploratory study approach and applied the convenience sampling method to choose six
participants. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, pre- and post-observation
conferences, classroom observations and reflective journals. The NVivo 12 Software was used to store
the vast amount of collected data, and thematic analysis was applied to analyse it. The findings
suggested that the participants conceptualised reflective practice as a flashback activity to enhance their
practice. Equally, the participants engaged in four types of reflection: reflection-before-action (RbA),
reflection-in-action (RinA), reflection-on-action (RonA), and reflection-for-action (RfA). It was observed
that generally the participants’ different types of reflections intersected. The participants’ reflections
were also analysed through the five levels of Farrell’s (2015) framework: philosophy, principles, theory,
practice and beyond practice. Hence, the participants’ reflections on their personal and professional
identities, their perceived roles in education, their assumptions, beliefs and conceptions, their espoused
theories and theories in use were presented. Moreover, the participants’ reflections on the curriculum
and delivery methods were explored as well as their reflections on educational policies and sociocultural issues. It was noted that the findings of the current study mostly aligned with the previous
research, especially in terms of attributing to the reflective practice concept a retrospective aspect.
Furthermore, the results of this study suggested that a holistic reflection did not necessarily mean critical
reflection. It was indicated that although describing and justifying the critical incidents were crucial,
teachers needed an action plan to enhance their upcoming practices. Therefore, a full cycle of reflection,
namely, RbA, RinA, RonA, and RbA is encouraged among the practitioners. Based on the findings and
thorough discussions, several implications were presented for educational researchers, policymakers,
and practitioners.