ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
This article is part of the Research TopicEnhancing Learning with Online Educational Videos in the Web 2.0 Era: Learner Engagement, Learning Processes and OutcomesView all articles
Fostering Critical Reflection in Pre-service Physical Science Teachers: Insights from Video-Based Lesson Analysis in South Africa
Provisionally accepted
- 1Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa
- 2University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This qualitative case study investigated the reflective practices of 79 purposively selected pre-service physical science teachers (45 PGCE and 34 BEd) in South Africa, who analysed a video-recorded lesson on acids and bases. Töman's three levels of reflection (technical, application, and critical) were employed as a conceptual framework. Data were gathered from participants' written reflections across four higher education institutions. Key findings revealed limited engagement with critical reflection and a significantly higher rate of "no reflection" in the PGCE cohort. Only 23 pre-service teachers demonstrated coherent, detailed reflections across all three levels. Their reflections primarily remained at the technical and application levels. This study underscores the challenges pre-service teachers face when engaging with recorded videos without external support. It highlights the urgent need for teacher educators and policymakers to integrate targeted strategies that cultivate essential reflective skills for effective teaching.
Keywords: acids and bases, practicum, Pre-service, Reflections, science teachers
Received: 03 Aug 2025; Accepted: 03 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Thamae, Sibanda and Naidoo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Doras Sibanda
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.