Development of a Questionnaire to Measure Reflective Attitude in/on Conversation
Submitted by:
Seongseog Park
Abstract:
Reflection (reflective thought) has been identified as a key competency for the 21st century. Some education theorists (e.g., in teacher education and adult education) have argued that educators must consider students’ reflective thought in education. Oral communication is a practice that needs the communicators’ reflection. Everyday conversation takes place more often than any other oral communication mode (e.g., debating, giving a presentation, etc.). Thus, language-art teachers should help students engage in continuous reflective thought in/on conversation. However, reflection is difficult to observe or measure, and define elaborately. Therefore, this study attempted to define reflection in/on conversation and develop a self-reported questionnaire to measure Reflective Attitude in/on Conversation (RAC). Based on the work of notable theorists, including Dewey (1933), Schön (1983), and Mezirow (1990), we defined reflection in/on conversation with three constructs: (a) Thoughtful Action (TA), (b) Reflection (Re), and (c) Critical Reflection (CR). These constructs represent levels (TA < Re < CR) and psychological constructs. First, we examined the construct validity. Second, we investigated the degree difference among these three levels. In the preliminary stage, we created 26 items based on our theoretical hypothesis with 5 specialists examining the content validity. In the exploratory stage, for the construct validity, we sampled 485 first- and second-year high-school students using the 26-item survey. A common factor analysis (i.e., promax rotation; maximum likelihood method) revealed that each of the 12 remaining items had a good factor loading to one's hypothesized construct after excluding 14 items. Moreover, a 3-factor model rejected the alternative hypothesis that there are more than 3 constructs (x^2 = 45.09, df = 33, p = .08), and the goodness-of-fit Tucker-Lewis Index satisfied the statistical standard (>.95). In the confirmatory stage, we sampled another 475 second-year high-school students using the 12-item survey. A structural equation analysis revealed that the previously explored 3-factor model had good model fitness. In the final stage, for the degree difference among these levels, we analyzed 475 samples from the confirmatory stage by repeated measures ANOVA. Accordingly, we identified the significance of the intra-subject difference (p < .05). Specifically, the mean for TA was the highest, Re was intermediate, and CR was the smallest.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: Heath.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Mezirow, J. (1990). Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transformative and emancipatory learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.