Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 2005. / Title from title page screen, viewed April 12, 2007. Dissertation Committee: Linda Lyman (chair), Wendy Troxel, Joe Pacha, Sally Weber. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-131) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (MEd)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1997. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [367]-388).

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2007. / Advisor -- Susan Barduhn Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-63 ).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2008. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 28, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-40).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of Education, August 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1995. / Title from title page screen, viewed April 24, 2006. Dissertation Committee: John T. Goeldi (chair), Kenneth F. Jerich, Patricia H. Klass, Margarat Shaw-Baker. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-185) and abstract. Also available in print.

Today, education is arguably one of the most important facets used to prepare and train students for the future. Society expects that students will acquire the requisite knowledge and competence in their respective fields to prepare them to successfully navigate the demands of today's competitive markets. This expectation has consequences on teachers at all levels of education across many domains. Teachers have a significant role: to prepare students for the future. Competent teachers spend a great deal of time reflecting on their own practices and beliefs, reviewing their teaching goals and evaluating if students have met these goals effectively. The process of reflection in teaching is vital in the preparation and training of students. / The purpose of this dissertation therefore was to investigate how statistics professors reflect on their practice. The research questions were designed to access what statistics teachers thought about before giving their courses and before giving two of their classes (hypothesis testing, t-tests). Post class evaluation interviews were conducted to determine where professors thought they were effective and whether they considered a need for change based on student understanding. More specifically, the questions asked: 1) What are the main themes in teacher reflection? 2) How is the content of reflection similar or different between statistics teachers? 3) How is the content of teacher reflection defined in statistics? / The design was based on a grounded theory approach whereby data collection consisted solely of interviews conducted throughout the semester: one pre-course interview and two sets of pre-class and post-class interviews. There were 13 participants in total. Participants were either statistics teachers from Quebec Cegeps or university professors. Participants were from the following departments: anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology, education, math, and biology. The analyses dealt with three data sources: pre class reflection, in class reflection, and post class reflection. / Data analysis focused on defining the main themes of teacher reflection that emerged from the data, identifying the content of reflection between and within participants in terms of similarities or differences. The pre course interview revealed five main themes: the course (logistics), the teacher as 'self, teaching approaches (what do they say they do in the classroom?), teaching and learning influences, and evaluation of teaching. / The pre and post class interviews addressed class planning. What did the professors foresee as any issues students might have in understanding hypothesis testing and t-tests? What changes would they make the next time they taught these concepts? Results showed that the focus of professor reflection centered around three main categories: the class, the student, and the teacher. For the main category, class, some professors reviewed lecture notes, added examples that emphasized authentic statistical problems, and others did no preparation. Student related themes addressed issues students had with understanding statistical content, learning associated difficulties, and student affect. The last category, the teacher, looked at self evaluation, their in-class strategies, methods of promoting and gauging student understanding, and decisions made in class and for future classes. Recommendations for future research include examining the role of experience in professor's level of reflection as well as defining the process of decision making and its role in reflection.

This study supported Schon's notions of reflective practice as being applicable to teachers involved in teaching physical activities in the context of unforgiving learning environments and specifically to teachers in the sport diving community. According to Schon, one's ability to recognize patterns and act effectively and efficiently in situations of uniqueness and uncertainty depends upon one's capacity to frame problems. In doing so, one draws upon a repertoire of past experience arid ways of capturing that experience which enables the development of the ability to reframe problems in light of information gathered from the direct experience. Reframing occurs through the processes of reflection-in-action and reflection-onaction and is a response to an internal dialogue related to the action setting, in which something has not happened as expected, thus producing a curious or intrigued response. A number of issues specific to teacher reflection in unforgiving learning environments emanated from the analysis of one sport diving teacher engaged in teaching an entry-level sport diving course which involved three different teaching environments (the classroom setting, the confined water [pool] and open water [ocean] environments). Three research questions guided the analysis. In answer to the first research question: What factors do sport diving practitioners reflect upon in each of the three environments? six reflective themes were identified in this case study with five being common across the three teaching environments and the remainder being specific to the classroom environment. The common themes were: a trusting relationship, the necessity of teacher control, to see the 'unforgivingness' of the environment, learning from one's practice, challenges to one's practice and understanding one's practice. In answer to the second research question: What influences the reflective process? the analysis revealed thirteen underlying or influencing factors or dispositions across the three teaching environments with eight of them being common to either two, or all three, of the environments. In answer to the third research question: What is the nature of sport diving practitioners' reflective practice? five categories have been used to address the analysis: 1) across environment related, 2) classroom and confined water (pool) related, 3) confined water (pool) and open water (ocean) related 4) classroom and open water (ocean) related and 5) specific to one environment. The reflection process documented in this study suggested that Schon's notion of reflective practice is very applicable to the professional development of sport diving as his conception of reflection applies to the three areas of teaching which exist in unforgiving learning environments: the problem solving disposition of teacher reflection, the learning from one's practice, and the probing of internal dialogue.