The presented study brings to the professional discourse a view on the reflection of pre-primary teachers in two phases of their professional development. The level of reflection was ascertained in the period of their study at the Faculty of Education (24) and then after a year of work in a kindergarten (6). The author first considers the necessity to develop reflective thinking among pre-primary teachers, which she has based on existing findings in the area. She presents the reflective model (Korthagen, 2011; Píšová, 2005), which she used in her research. The remaining part of the text deals with the methodology of the research and the findings that resulted from the data analysis. The results show that aimed support directed at reflection helps to develop higher levels of cognitive thinking and also points to the connection with using more effective strategies in pre-primary education.
The given study brings the view of professional thinking of pre-school teachers into the professional discourse about professionalization of teaching with the aim to find out about the quality of reflection of pre-school teachers with different levels of qualification. In the foreword chapters, the authors consider the relationship between professionalism and qualification and summarize with introducing three dimensions of professional thinking – cognitive, reflective and subjective dimension. In the paper, the authors concentrate only on the reflective dimension which represents the central point of investigation of the nature of thinking of (female) preschool teachers with different levels of qualification (ISCED 3A and ISCED 5B). They present the models of reflection (Eby, 2000; Korthagen, 2011; Píšová, 2005) that were used in the research. The following part of the paper focuses on the research methodology and findings. The results show that some positive evaluation statements of the respondents about their work are in the contrast to the results of the video analysis. The results of the research investigation have shown that the teachers who had been involved in focused reflection and realization of self-reflection techniques use a higher level of cognitive thinking. Therefore the authors’ view on professional thinking and its development through systematic implementation of reflection already during preservice pre-school teacher education at Faculties of Education has been supported.
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