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Fostering Reflection in Pupils withLearning DifficultiesJudith Watson aa Moray House College of Education , Holyrood Road,Edinburgh EH8 8AQ, ScotlandPublished online: 07 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Judith Watson (1998) Fostering Reflection in Pupils with LearningDifficulties, International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 45:1, 9-16, DOI:10.1080/1034912980450102

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International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, Vol. 45, No. 1, 1998

Fostering Reflection in Pupils withLearning DifficultiesJUDITH WATSONMoray House College of Education, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AQ, Scotland

ABSTRACT This paper reports on the classroom experiences of 11-year-old pupils attendingfour Scottish special schools. The focus was on reflection by pupils, that is the extension oftheir thinking 'beyond the given', in reasoning, problem solving and metacognition, and onways in which teachers facilitate the process of reflection in pupils who have moderatedegrees of difficulty in learning.

Introduction

This paper describes the procedures and some results from an investigation intoreflection within four special school classrooms for pupils described as havingmoderate learning difficulties. These are pupils for whom research findings onreflection are very promising. Reflection does not come readily as they grow older,for a variety of possible reasons, but there are many positive indications that gainsin understanding, confidence, self-esteem and independence can result from appro-priate educational experiences.

Appropriate educational experiences have included encouraging metacognitiveawareness of the kind advocated by Flavell (1981), specific "thinking skills,"activities, games of deduction, and group problem-solving (Ashman & Conway,1989; Powell & Makin, 1994). It was important to know whether the small classesof special schools would habitually emphasise thinking and present challengingopportunities to pupils who were not naturally very reflective. Would teachersbelieve that it was important to home in on and explore pupils' errors and signs ofincomprehension? Would they deliberately organise problematic or ambiguous situ-ations? A challenging teaching approach which views mistakes as potentially fruitfulmeans to cognitive advance has not featured prominently in the teaching of pupilswith difficulties in learning. The traditions of "errorless learning" and "practicemakes perfect" have been long lasting, powerful influences in many special schools.

The aims of the research were to consider the following questions: (a) Wasreflection happening in the classroom? (b) How did teachers encourage reflection bypupils? (c) What characterised reflective episodes in the classroom? and (d) Whatwere teachers' views about their pupils' learning difficulties and the role of reflectionin their educational experience?

1034-912X/98/010009-08 ©1998 Carfax Publishing Ltd

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10 J. Watson

Several principles governed the nature of the research from the outset.

1. It was to interfere as little as possible with the normal classroom activities. Theusual planned classroom experiences were observed and recorded in as leastdisturbing a manner as possible. Ecological validity (gaining a truly representativepicture of the four classrooms) was a high priority.

2. A range of curricular experiences were to be covered. Reflection might equallywell occur during general "news," discussion periods, or creative activities, asduring problem-solving or mathematics.

3. From extensive data from a small number of classrooms, features of interestwould be identified. Categories were derived from the data obtained.

4. Teachers' views about their work were important, but must not be allowed toinfluence the processes of data collection and analysis. They were obtained byinterview after recording, observation, and analysis.

Method

Setting and Participants

The research project was carried out in four special schools comprising all thosedesignated for pupils with "moderate learning difficulties" in one particular geo-graphical area. These pupils present complex challenges to teachers, many havingcommunication difficulties and emotionally insecure family backgrounds. All classes(10 to 12 pupils on average) contained a range of pupils, some of whom may havehad some attendance at a mainstream primary school.

The focus in each school was on one class for pupils aged between 10 to 12 years,an age at which most children are naturally and spontaneously developing and usingtheir reflective abilities (Flavell, 1985).

Two target pupils were chosen by each class teacher. They were fairly clearspeakers who were not too inhibited, did not have significant behavioural difficulties,and were judged to be managing quite well in their class. The sample comprised fiveboys and three girls, and their mean age at the beginning of the term during whichrecordings were made was 11.5 years.

Procedure

It was indicated to the class teacher that the aim was to record her usual classroompractice and that the research was concerned with thinking in the classroom; that is,pupils' learning strategies, awareness of their own thinking and problem-solving, andhow teachers responded when pupils did not understand. The emphasis was onnormal classroom activities and teachers were not to change their plans.

The target pupils alternately, and the teacher on each visit, wore radio micro-phones and the research assistant was present in the classroom. Approximately 50hours of classroom recording were available for analysis. The research assistant wasunobtrusive during the recordings and made contextual notes. Radio microphoneswere effective in securing high quality recordings in which the target pupil andteacher were almost always identifiable. Talk between them was of major interest

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Fostering Reflection 11

and talk between target pupils and their peers in group situations was anotherimportant source of information.

The research assistant asked the class teacher before each session about her plansfor the class and expectations concerning the target pupil. Following each sessionshe asked the teacher how she felt it had gone. That is, whether she thought thesession had gone according to plan, whether the target pupil had been "challenged,"and to identify any difficulties in understanding.

The target pupils were also asked after each session to recount what they had beendoing, whether there was anything they had liked or disliked, and what was the mostdifficult or easiest, and why. There was a lot of variation in the length and detail ofpupils' responses, especially at the beginning, but a general impression of their viewsand feelings was gained.

Transcriptions inevitably were lengthy arduous undertakings, but these did in-clude all the talk by target pupils or directed towards them. Contextual informationfrom the observational notes was added. Target pupils' experience of classroom talkwas thus available in written form, a rich source amenable to a wide range ofdissections and inspections that could be revisited repeatedly. The voice and timingcaptured on the audiotapes also provided a vivid sense of reality to confirm or enrichthe written data.

Data Analysis

Teacher talk. The richness and quantity of recorded classroom talk presents anexciting challenge to any researcher. Of interest were features in the teachers'interactions with their pupils which related to the encouragement of reflection: whatthey did and said; how they introduced work to pupils; how they dealt with pupils'questions or misunderstandings; how they kept things going throughout wholeclassroom sessions and across a range of classroom activities.

It was important to approach the transcripts with no preconceived notions.Instead of using a ready made system of categorisation, talk by teachers wasapproached with an open mind so as to retain its richness and not to impose secondorder groupings like "questions" and "gives information" at the start because it isvery easy to lose the quality of qualitative data at an early stage. Categories had tobe "grounded" both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually they had to makesense within the overall framework embracing reflection and empirically they had tofit the evidence in the transcripts.

Theory does not simply emerge from the data. Researchers are inevitablyinfluenced by their own existing concepts and theoretical positions. But the decisionto allow the evidence to "speak for itself at an early stage, decreases the danger ofmental foreclosure. Direct quotations from the classroom transcripts have explana-tory potential and convey a vivid sense of classroom reality.

As Dey (1993) points out, there is no single set of categories waiting to bediscovered. There are many possible ways of "seeing" the data. This does not meanthat the categories arrived at are arbitrary because clearly they must make sense ofthe data.

The process of categorisation forces a researcher to think about the data in detail

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12 J. Watson

and to become familiar with it. Inevitably, this leads to the generation of ideas.Before categorisation, the data consisted of transcriptions and audio recordings. Theextraction, categorisation, and comparison of examples of teacher talk meant thatthese were removed from their context. The context was repeatedly revisited in theprocess of episode identification; the second source of evidence considered in thispaper.

The basic unit used in the derivation of categories of teacher talk was a "turn," anutterance bounded by a pause or another person talking. All the recorded classroomtalk by the teachers was included except for purely management activities(e.g., tidying up) and talk that she addressed to visitors or other members of staff.The talk that was analysed was all addressed to pupils and this included news timeand informal chat, as well as planned class activities.

Devising a category system for the teacher talk in our study involved a process ofrepeated refinement and adjustment, as a result of extensive discussion and record-ing by two researchers. The final system consisted of six categories (three large onesbeing further subdivided) and judged comprehensive (in that all teacher talk couldbe categorised) and sufficiently reliable for the purpose of the study (see Watson,1996 for details).

The following categories were agreed upon:

1. Category One concerns teachers' assessment of pupils' current knowledge(e.g., What does it say? Do you know what "winched off' means?).

2. Category Two is where teachers encourage reflection by pupils (e.g., What doescross mean then if it doesn't mean you're angry? Why would they be havingeight-legged races?).

3. Category Three comprises teachers keeping pupils on task (e.g., I know it's a bitdifficult for you, but keep trying. You are dreaming, aren't you?).

4. Category Four is when teachers model reflection (e.g., No I didn't understandthat bit. Shall we have another look at that one?).

5. Category Five is the promotion of pupils' independence (e.g., There's no right orwrong answers. It's what you think.).

6. Category Six is applied to teachers' emphasis on peer contributions (e.g., Couldyou explain to him what we are doing?).

We found this categorisation system to be satisfactory for our purposes, and usedit to analyse all the teacher talk experienced within a number of sessions by a targetpupil either when addressed as an individual or as part of a larger group.

Results and Discussion

The overall percentages of the six categories in our sample and of individualteachers' category usage are shown in Table I.

The teacher styles which were revealed by our categorisation of their talk werefound to be consistent. Different categories appeared in the same rank order for ateacher across different sessions. This rather striking fact (for sessions involveddifferent activities and target pupils) is one of the main research findings and wasalso related in our study to pupils' enjoyment and to the length of classroom

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Fostering Reflection 13

TABLE I. Categories of teacher talk: overall percentage per teacher

Category

Teacher 1Teacher 2Teacher 3Teacher 4Mean

1

3462572845

2

436

204529

3

1222171416

4

76476

5

52244

6

02021

dialogues. In brief, where the teachers used a high proportion of Category 2 talk,they used less individual teaching, engaged in longer dialogues, and pupils enjoyedtheir classroom experiences more. The more challenging teaching style representedby more Category 2 talk, and correspondingly less use of Category 1, was suggestedin the study to be associated with increased pupil engagement.

This was further explored using transcripts not previously used in categorisingteacher talk, by identifying a sample of periods of time when our target pupils werechallenged intellectually.

The term "reflective episode" applies to a time segment when target pupilsshowed evidence of being cognitively engaged, as when, for example, they asked forhelp, explained to others, and noted errors and contradictions. The evidence lies inthe transcripts and observations. The word "episode" is appropriate because dur-ation is necessarily entailed by reflection, a period of time within much longerteaching sessions when the quality of pupils' learning experience changes, becomingmore intense, involving mental absorption and emotional involvement.

The resolution of each identified reflective episode was of interest. When pupils'thinking appeared to have advanced, their confusion been reduced or resolved,self-awareness increased or ideas acknowledged, this was judged satisfactory. Suc-cessful episodes were characterised by teacher responsiveness, explicitness, andCategory 2 talk.

Ideally a teacher's role in an episode was to respond and tune in to a pupil'scurrent focus of interest and level of understanding and to support and extend thisby expert scaffolding. There were many examples of this, such as when Samanthawas reading and her teacher repeatedly probed her understanding and emphasisedher mental activity, with "So what do you think?," "That's a good guess," and"Remember to check." In such situations teachers were making fine judgements onhow much assistance pupils needed in order to avoid any sense of failure, but at thesame time to foster their feelings of competence and independence, which is theessence of scaffolding. "I mustn't push too fast, could jeopardise success so far" and"I think he will either call out for help constantly or give up and need coaxing" weretypical comments. A second teacher was very successful in leaving a pupil with aproblem to think about, with specific instructions and reminders as, for example,with Mark: "I want you to think very carefully what the difference is between asquare and a rectangle. They've both got four corners and they've both got foursides, but there's a difference between them. Why are some squares and somerectangles? I want you to have a little think about that while you're colouring in. It's

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14 J. Watson

to do with the sides ..." (Mark laughs). The importance of responding to the pupil'scurrent interest was stressed in later teacher interviews. "If something took off youshould go with it because it's meaningful and has potential." Conversely there wasno point in "labouring against" when things were not going well, one teacher said.

When teachers were engaged with pupils in successful reflective episodes, theirown attention was focussed and their language explicit, far removed from thedetached vagueness that has been repeatedly found to increase pupils' frustrationand reduce their levels of achievement. A series of studies have shown that whenteachers' talk is vague (e.g., "somehow," "just about," "thing," and "kind o f ) , thenpupils' initiations will be fewer and shorter (Dunkin, 1987). Target pupils' frus-tration was sometimes very apparent when what a teacher said revealed how she hadnot succeeded in tuning in to their thinking. Category 2 talk was much morecommon in the two classrooms where almost all of the satisfactory reflectiveepisodes were identified. Such talk is responsive and explicit and has the potentialto extend pupils' thinking through tuning in to what they say, asking them forexplanations and justifications, pointing out analogies, consequences and inconsis-tencies, and raising their metacognitive awareness. Category 2 talk is not simplychecking on pupils' knowledge, as in Category 1, but extends and explores it anddemonstrates a teacher's interest. All the teachers used Category 1 talk includingseveral direct questions at the outset of their sessions, but as the work progressedtwo of the teachers reliably addressed more probing challenging talk to their pupils.The audiotapes recorded marked changes in tempo at this point, with frequent andlong pauses within and between episodes of reflection.

Teachers did not always wait long enough for pupils' replies. There were anumber of occasions when pupils' replies or contributions were lost as the teacherhad moved on. This was most evident in one classroom with a strong emphasis onfinishing the work. In this classroom there were also few breaks in the high level oftalk and activity during which pupils could engage in reflection.

Modelling by teachers is a powerful and effective influence on their pupils,particularly where the classroom ethos is warm. Nonverbal indications of puzzle-ment and concentration form a significant part of this, but are not part of ourevidence. Category 4 comprised teachers' own problem-solving, thinking aloud,planning, and checking. Although such examples were infrequent, they were usuallyresponded to by pupils. For example, when teachers expressed puzzlement, pupilsoften came up with explanations. This is an effective way of helping to drawattention to ambiguity or inconsistency. Other examples of more specific strategiesare verbalisation and visualisation to help memory.

Conclusion

Teachers can be effective in encouraging reflection through classroom interaction byproviding pupils with contingent responses which explicitly encourage them toreflect, by modelling reflection themselves and by making explicit links with pupils'previous experience. The present data contain many examples of this.

Pupils rarely linked other experiences in or out of school with their currentclassroom activity. Their teachers did so quite frequently, particularly at an early

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Fostering Reflection 15

stage in a session when outlining pupils' work. Often such links were brief andsimply to the effect that pupils had done the same kind of thing before, a process ofconsolidation and repetition rather than extension. Pupils in the special schoolsrarely made such linking spontaneously, indicating their need for more explicitreference to its importance.

As pupils with learning difficulties often do not generalise their learning to newbut similar tasks and situations spontaneously, it is important that they are encour-aged to make connections, and look for similarities. This could be highlighted moreby teachers, particularly in group situations.

Observations often lent support to the common generalisation concerning pupilswith learning difficulties, that is, their liability to be distracted and difficulty inconcentration. However, there was also evidence of sustained periods of attentionduring reflective episodes when pupils became caught up in a challenging task.Probably the most desirable feature of pupils' classroom experience is enjoyment ofproblem-solving and of challenging intellectual experiences, and their growingcuriosity, eagerness, and responsiveness. In our recordings laughter, smiles, andexcited exclamations were associated with reflective episodes. The target pupils'enjoyment was certainly not less during the sessions when they reported that theyhad been really working hard and that they had found their work difficult, but theirdissatisfaction was very clear on occasions when they had met with challenges whichwere not concluded in a satisfying way. Pupils' reactions then were negative andemotional, as they also were when given work that they found too easy or childish.Pupils' extreme sensitivity and feelings of inadequacy when they were not success-fully coping with their classroom activities were very apparent. They were allextremely reluctant to ask for help and to admit their difficulties, even with the mosttactful of teacher support. Admission of confusion and being able to ask for help andknowing what help is needed is a characteristic of effective and mature learners. Itsimportance is often underestimated in the classroom behaviour of pupils withlearning difficulties.

Being a member of a group has many potentially positive aspects in relation toreflection. One that is often overlooked in discussions of provision for pupils withlearning difficulties is the reduction of their feeling of emotional exposure. Groupwork, sensitively handled, can help reduce the likelihood of teasing and increasepupils' appreciation of each others' individuality and contributions. Many pupilswith special educational needs show reluctance in admitting confusion and aconsequent avoidance of this by playing safe. They often have little faith in their ownjudgements and readily agree with and rely on those of other people. When they aremistaken they may believe that this is a situation they can do nothing about, thattheir lack of ability is the cause, and they may act in a very passive manner,dependent on their teachers' step by step prompting, not investing much effort andmissing out on challenging experiences that could boost their confidence andfeelings of control.

The risk of this is reduced in classroom activities which give pupils responsibilityfor decision-making and where there is not necessarily a right answer, but wherethe consequences are apparent. Group tasks in which they have to accommodate

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16 J. Watson

the different views and contributions of their peers reduce the likelihood ofpassivity.

Another way of raising pupils' confidence is for teachers to deliberately foster theirunique and individual contributions, particularly in group settings. One of theteachers repeatedly stressed the value of pupils' ideas that were different from thoseof others, and she had no hesitation in telling pupils how boring it was when theycopied each others' contributions, and would respond to original contributions withcomments like "That's interesting! I hadn't thought of that."

Pupils' positive attitudes towards hard work were modelled by their teachers, andhelped by sensitivity to pupils' individual, sometimes idiosyncratic ways of working,discussion of helpful strategies, and explicit contingent scaffolding to aid under-standing. Perhaps most important of all are the expectations and attitudes of boththe teacher and pupils, in any classroom. These influenced the ways in which theteachers interacted with their pupils, the conveying to them of a sense of respect forthem as individuals with valid ideas and interests which could and should be sharedwith others. Category 2 type talk by teachers expresses this underlying belief andencourages reflection in their interactions with pupils.

ReferencesASHMAN, A.F. & CONWAY, R.N.F. (1989). Cognitive strategies for special education. London:

Routledge.DEY, I. (1993). Qualitative data analysis. London: Routledge.DUNKIN, M. (Ed.) (1987). International encyclopaedia of teaching and teacher education. Oxford:

Pergamon.FLAVELL, J. (1981). Cognitive monitoring. In W. Dickson (Ed.), Children's oral communications

(pp. 35-60). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.FLAVELL, J. (1985). Cognitive development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.POWELL, S. & MAKIN, M. (1994). Enabling pupils with learning difficulties to reflect on their own

thinking. British Educational Research Journal, 20, 579-593.WATSON, J. (1996). Reflection through interaction: The classroom experience of pupils with learning

difficulties. London: Falmer Press.

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