The development of reflective thinking
in student teachers has been gaining
greater attention in the teacher
education literature. Nevertheless, some
of the multiple factors involved in this
process have not yet been examined. This
study focused on the perceptions that
student teachers have of their
relationship with their cooperating
teachers in the context of a practicum.
More specifically, it attempted to
determine if and how cooperating
teachers trigger student teachers'
reflective thinking. Seventeen student
teachers, who made up the first cohort
to experience the four-year
undergraduate program in teaching
English as a second language,
participated in this exploratory study.
Three sets of data were collected
through questionnaires, interviews and
reflective logs. Two phases of analysis
followed, allowing the categorization of
results and patterns into five distinct
categories that corresponded to the
research questions. The quantitative
phase provided the results to the
Likert-type questionnaire usingtwo
statistical management softwares: SPSS
10.0 and Excel. The qualitative phase
used a coding system to identify the
emerging patterns in the interview and
in the reflective log data. The first
phase of analysis provided descriptive
statistics indicating that it is the
cooperating teachers' verbal
communication that most triggers student
teachers' reflective thinking. The
second phase revealed that student
teachers attribute the triggering of
their reflective thinking more to
themselves and to class incidents than
to their cooperating teachers. Based on
the findings, Taggart's (1996)
Reflective Thinking Model was enhanced
by a socio-constructivist micro-model
designed to help cooperating teachers
better support student teachers'
reflection. The study contributes to
teacher education research by
elucidating the relationship between
student teachers and cooperating
teachers with regards to the development
of reflective thinking.