KOREASCHOLAR

The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of pre-service language teachers’ reflection for problem solving, focusing on facets of problem solving. For this purpose, this study collected and analyzed twenty pre-service English teachers’ ninety-four entries of reflection guided by semi-structured guidelines for problem solving: pre-reflective, reflective thinking, and post-reflective. For the analysis of the data, this study adopted constant comparative analysis to identify and categorize features in the data from the perspective of qualitative approach. This study found three dimensions of problem solving and three or four segments under each dimension. Dimensions represent the possible procedural steps of problem solving: ‘problem-determination’, ‘problem-analysis’, and ‘solution’. In terms of cognitive purposes, four possible segments emerged: ‘description’, ‘elaboration’, ‘justification’, and ‘evaluation’. In contrast, concerning perspectives on viewing problems, this study identified three segments: ‘thou-view’, ‘i-view’, and ‘alternative-view’. The variation in the employment of the dimensions and segments was found to represent diverse patterns of problem solving in pre-service language teacher reflection. The findings of this study suggest some implications for pre-service language teacher education.

• KookJeong Park(Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)