Revealing teachers’ reflective thinking by qualitative comparative analysis and unstructured reflective diary

Abstract

The study aims at revealing how practising teachers think about the school of the future. In addition to exploring teachers’ reflections, our main objective is to illustrate the applicability of fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) in Hungarian empirical research in education. The combination of the unstructured reflective diaries and fsQCA form a complex methodological environment. In addition to qualitative content analysis, the key aspect of data analysis is the conversion of unstructured qualitative data into fuzzy sets, that has been realized in different phases. Teachers’ reflections reveal a network of educational spaces and the process of teaching and learning. The traditional teacher- and curriculum-centered didactic triangle has been replaced by child-centeredness, problem-solving, digitalization and teacher-parent cooperation. In the teaching-learning process teachers act in accordance with their routines and cognitive patterns and react in line with their beliefs and pedagogical knowledge.