Let Me Think About It—Establishing “Need to Reflect” as a Motivational Variable in Reflection Processes

Abstract

Reflection is considered to be a core component of professional development in teacher education, yet little is known about the motivational determinants of reflective activities in everyday school contexts. Drawing on theories of learning and motivation, we introduce and conceptualise the “need to reflect” as a situationally and personally influenced motivational factor that mediates the relationship between classroom experiences and subsequent reflective processes. We operationalise this construct through a newly developed item and examine it in a diary study involving N = 79 in-service primary school teachers over ten school days. Multilevel analyses reveal that daily classroom-related hassles—especially failed attempts to address disturbances—are positively associated with teachers’ need to reflect, whereas successful classroom management reduces this need. Furthermore, emotional exhaustion moderates this relationship: Teachers with higher levels of emotional exhaustion reported a stronger link between unsuccessful disturbance management and their need to reflect. Self-efficacy in classroom management is not shown to have a moderating effect. These findings suggest that the need to reflect fluctuates across situations and is influenced by individual teacher characteristics, offering new insights into motivational components underlying reflective processes with significant implications for teacher education and professional development.

1. Introduction

For several decades, reflection has been considered a core principle of teacher education. Numerous studies have highlighted the need for teachers—from the start of their university studies to their last days in the profession—to reflect on certain aspects of their professional behaviour and the abilities and beliefs underlying them (Etscheidt et al., 2012; Hatton & Smith, 1995; Zeichner, 2010; Zeichner & Liston, 1987). To gain greater insights into the quality of reflection, several authors have developed models of reflection ranging from superficial to sophisticated in nature that present various stages of the process (Hatton & Smith, 1995). Based on such models, research has demonstrated the effectiveness of instructional designs in fostering more sophisticated stages of reflection (Husu et al., 2008; Nagro et al., 2017). However, this line of research has focused solely on reflective activities in the context of teacher education and professional development, which are broadly motivated and guided by explicit tasks.

Yet teacher educators still face central challenges when aiming to foster reflection in meaningful and sustainable ways. One major issue is that reflection does not always occur when it is most needed in practice, especially in emotionally demanding or stressful classroom situations. Moreover, even when reflective activities are initiated, their depth and quality vary greatly between individuals and across contexts. This raises the question of what actually motivates teachers to engage in reflection in the first place. Why do some teachers feel the urge to analyse a lesson critically, while others do not—despite similar external circumstances?

To date, little is known about the determinants and consequences of reflective activities. For example, current models of reflection do not explain why teacher candidates or in-service teachers differ in their reflective activities in their everyday school lives or why a teacher candidate may reflect superficially on one occasion and engage in more sophisticated reflection on another. Moreover, existing models fail to address differences in reflective activities across different contexts (e.g., everyday school life vs. university field experience vs. video-based university course).

This study addresses these gaps by focusing on motivational determinants of reflection, specifically the construct of the “need to reflect”. We argue that such a need arises when situational demands or personal states disrupt routine professional functioning and create a subjective impulse to engage in reflection. Hence, this perspective offers a novel explanation for the context-dependent variability in reflective behaviour. Factors such as daily classroom-related hassles, teachers’ levels of emotional exhaustion, and self-efficacy in classroom management are investigated as potential triggers or amplifiers of this need. These aspects reflect both situational and dispositional influences that are highly relevant for understanding reflection in real-life teaching.

Therefore, this study theoretically and empirically establishes the construct of the need to reflect. Based on existing theories of learning and motivation, we argue that the need to reflect mediates the relationship between various events and the reflection process. Furthermore, we propose an assessment approach. Finally, based on a diary study with a sample of N = 79 in-service teachers surveyed over the course of ten school days (two weeks), we empirically explore whether the need to reflect depends on situational characteristics.

1.1. Teacher Reflection as a Means of Learning

In the 1980s, a new paradigm for teacher learning emerged and has since shaped teacher education: teacher reflection (Etscheidt et al., 2012; Gelfuso & Dennis, 2014; Hatton & Smith, 1995; Zeichner & Liston, 1987). Based on the idea of John Dewey in the late 1930s, reflection is the ability “to look back over what has been done so as to extract the net meanings which are the capital stock for intelligent dealing with future experiences” (Dewey, 1938, p. 110, cited from Gelfuso & Dennis, 2014). The basic notion here is that teachers at various stages of their careers are expected to deliberately think about their actions, explore the reasons behind them and develop alternative approaches moving forward. Viewed from this perspective, reflection may be viewed as an umbrella term—a holistic understanding of learning (Lenske & Lohse-Bossenz, 2023). Emerging from a focus on experience-based learning, the paradigm has even been widened to cover content such as fundamental beliefs and identity (Hamlin, 2004; Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005). Especially at the outset of teacher education, student teachers are asked to reflect on their beliefs regarding the role of teachers both inside and outside the classroom (Hamlin, 2004), on the driving factors behind their choice to adopt teaching as a career, and on the skills and abilities that they need to develop throughout their teacher education programme.

Critically, reflecting on one’s experiences or beliefs about teaching produces, in some ways, new information (Shulman, 1986). From a psychological perspective, this new information is stored and represented in long-term memory and, in turn, forms new cognitive schemes or enlarges existing ones. To achieve this, complex cognitive activities—ranging from information processing through information retrieval from long-term memory to the combination of new information with existing knowledge in the working memory—must be conducted (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968). Evidently, reflection is a learning process that consists of distinct cognitive activities. As those cognitive activities afford resources and are often time-consuming, motivational processes may support reflection. Taking, for instance, expectancy–value theories of motivation (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), the individual must perceive there to be some degree of value in the reflection process or its outcomes to engage in reflection at all—especially to engage in it at more than just a superficial level. If they do not perceive such value (e.g., when reflections are not closely linked to teachers’ actions in the classroom), they will put less effort into the necessary reflective activities. However, if teachers perceive reflection as a useful tool with the potential to improve their lessons (extrinsic value) or if they simply enjoy the process of reflection (intrinsic value), they will be more motivated to allocate resources to such reflective activities on a daily basis. Additionally, only if the reflecting person perceives themselves as capable of reflecting at the necessary level and depth to achieve a sufficient result (self-efficacy for reflection; Hußner et al., 2023; Lohse-Bossenz et al., 2019) will they put effort into reflective activities and persist even amid difficulties. Despite their presumed importance, the motivational factors behind reflection have been largely neglected by the literature on reflection in general and, more specifically, that concerning models of reflection.

1.2. Models of (Teacher) Reflection

Although much research has been based on Dewey’s idea of reflection, several authors have specified forms of reflection by distinguishing between distinct levels of reflection (e.g., Hatton & Smith, 1995) or by analysing underlying processes of reflection (e.g., Korthagen & Kessels, 1999). Calderhead (1989) developed specific criteria to characterise models of reflection in greater detail. He proposed that existing models differ with respect to four key dimensions: the process of reflection, the content of reflection, preconditions for reflection and the product of reflection (see also Hatton & Smith, 1995). This approach allows for differentiated analyses of reflection, as it highlights that certain aspects of reflection should be considered separately and evaluated independently. Building on this distinction, Etscheidt et al. (2012) summarised different models of reflection in teacher education, distinguishing between technical reflection, deliberate reflection and critical reflection (see also van Manen, 1977). In a similar vein, Hatton and Smith (1995), based on an analysis of written reflections, identified specific levels of reflection, such as descriptive writing, descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection and critical reflection. Their framework emphasised the varying depth and complexity of reflective activities, further illustrating aspects of Etscheidt et al.’s (2012) broader typology.

In contrast to many models focused primarily on the analysis of reflective products, Korthagen and his colleagues (Korthagen & Kessels, 1999; Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005) presented an integrated approach that combines both reflective processes and reflective content (core reflections). Although it neglects any social or motivational processes, it is oriented towards the idea of reflection as a means of learning, with the model being specifically validated within university teacher education and offering a foundation for approaches aimed at fostering pre-service teachers’ reflective abilities. Reviewing these different lines of research, Lenske and Lohse-Bossenz (2023) defined reflection in pedagogical contexts as an event-related mental process aimed at a deeper understanding of pedagogical practice with explicit self-reference. The authors emphasised that self-reference plays a crucial role in the reflection process by enabling individuals to examine the subject matter not only objectively but also in relation to their own experiences, beliefs and identity, facilitating a deeper, more personal understanding of their pedagogical practice (Lohse-Bossenz et al., 2023; Merkert et al., 2023). While research has already addressed mental processes, current studies rarely focus on the features of events that prompt teachers to engage in reflection.

1.3. Reflection in Teacher Education

Since the late 1980s, university teacher education has aimed to educate teachers to be reflective practitioners (Schön, 1983; Zeichner & Liston, 1987). As reflection appears to be highly promising when it comes to the development of professional teaching competencies, reflective practices have been systematically integrated into teacher education programs. Reflecting on beliefs, motives for teaching and, later, field-based experiences can help student teachers develop a reflective perspective on their own teaching, as well as their role for and responsibilities to pupils and society at large. To encourage higher levels of reflection among student teachers, manifold course designs and specific tasks—providing opportunities to reflect—have been developed and evaluated. One obvious approach is to allow pre-service teachers to gain field-based experiences and grant them opportunities to link those experiences to university courses (Liakopoulou, 2012; McDuffie, 2004; Seban, 2009; Zeichner, 2010). Assisting student teachers through mentoring would also promote reflective capacities (Harrison et al., 2005; Mena et al., 2017). Additionally (or sometimes complementary to field-based experiences), teacher educators use classroom videos to foster reflection with predominantly positive impacts (Brouwer et al., 2017; Luna & Sherin, 2017; Rosaen et al., 2008; Santagata & Angelici, 2010; Santagata & Guarino, 2011; Sewall, 2009). Another line of research promotes the importance of teacher research and inquiry for reflective learning. Student teachers should engage in some kind of classroom-based research. Results and experiences may then be used to link scientific theory to practical actions (Dawson, 2006; Lambe, 2011).

Although these approaches differ, they overlap in the fact that they aim to trigger reflection through extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivation. Despite the design of many interesting and efficacious learning opportunities aimed at the development of reflective skills, the predominance of activities designed around extrinsic motivation may explain why many teachers reflect on their daily work at a rather superficial level (Samuels & Betts, 2007). This idea was further illustrated by Leonhard and Abels (2017), who differentiated between spontaneous and forced reflection. Central to their argument was the question of whether student teachers at university, when reflecting on a specific incident, would have engaged in this reflection had they not been required to do so by their teacher educator. In contrast, spontaneous reflections emerge from the interaction between a particular situation and a personal need to gain deeper insight into that situation. Given that prerequisites for reflection (e.g., motivational processes) are rarely addressed in research on fostering reflection in teacher education, this paper aims to close this gap. More specifically, we seek to substantiate the theoretical understanding of spontaneous reflection, as proposed by Leonhard and Abels (2017), by drawing on theories of learning and motivation.

1.4. Explaining Reflection Processes Based on Learning Theories

Constructivist learning theories employ the concept of schemes to explain how knowledge is represented in the long-term memory (Hasselhorn & Gold, 2017). Information is evaluated to determine whether it fits with existing schemes. In the 1930s, Piaget had already formulated two ways in which learners deal with information that does not fit: they neglect it or evaluate it as unimportant to the scheme (assimilation); or they use it to enlarge the scheme, which leads to learning (accommodation) (see Hasselhorn & Gold, 2017). Research on conceptual change in science education (Vosniadou, 2008) argues along the same lines, asserting that children should be confronted with information and experiences that challenge their pre-/misconceptions concerning specific phenomena. The larger the difference between these pre-/misconceptions and the new information, the higher the irritation perceived by the learner. This higher irritation then nurtures a drive to obtain more knowledge or reorganise cognitive schemes. Learners’ prior knowledge plays an important role in determining the manner in which situations are perceived; this manner is relevant in the context of teacher education, where teaching situations must be perceived and then reflected upon. For example, student teachers may watch a videotaped lesson and be instructed to reflect on it. They may also use a specific focus, for example, to reflect on the teacher’s classroom-management-related actions. If a student teacher does not possess the relevant knowledge to evaluate the teacher’s actions, the classroom situation may appear to be going pretty well in their eyes (see, for example, Kruger & Dunning, 1999). On the one hand, classroom situations that fit into existing schemes are easily processed and integrated, without pre-service or in-service teachers feeling a “need to reflect”—a concept that we introduce in this paper. With this in mind, one can explain why certain reflective tasks at university lack the expected quality. On the other hand, classroom situations that do not fit into existing schemes may lead to a degree of irritation. Following constructivist learning ideas, if the irritating information causes sufficient cognitive conflict, the resulting need to reflect is large enough to facilitate the accommodation of action schemes. However, if the irritating information can be assimilated, no such need arises.

1.5. Establishing the Need to Reflect Within Theories of Motivation

Early motivational psychologists (e.g., Lewin) defined motivated behaviour as actions that are focused on the fulfilment of specific needs in certain situations (Heckhausen & Heckhausen, 2006). Only if a situation is able to fulfil a specific need are related actions taken. Similarly, only if a need is present in a specific situation will the possible actions be enacted. The need to reflect is considered a central determinant of reflective activities. It describes a person’s urge to acquire a deeper understanding of a specific situation or incident. This need stems from a fundamental desire for consistency. It is comparable to what Festinger (1957) described as the drive to reduce cognitive dissonance: When individuals perceive something as inconsistent with their expectations, they strive to reduce this dissonance through, for instance, cognitive reinterpretation (see also Clarà, 2015). For teachers, lessons that do not go as planned may increase their need to reflect—at least to identify the reasons behind the mismatch between their planned lesson and the actual lesson. In educational settings, where student teachers are required to reflect on a video by the teacher educator but experience insufficient cognitive conflict and consequently no need to reflect, they will engage in reflection but not allocate much effort to the undertaken reflective activities. This, in turn, may lead to low-quality reflections that offer limited value for the purposes of learning. In contrast, another student who experiences sufficient cognitive conflict and perhaps encounters a situation similar to the one shown in the video may feel a stronger need to reflect, as they hope to discover alternative teaching approaches. This student may put more effort into the reflective activities and gain substantial knowledge.

Expectancy–value theories (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), which model motivational tendencies as the interaction between the value attributed to the expected outcomes and the expectancy of achieving these desired outcomes, may also help to explain motivational tendencies to engage in reflection. Concerning the value of reflective outcomes, reflections that are directly based on one’s own experience likely possess greater value than those based on others’ behaviour, prompting a greater need for self-evaluation through reflection. Research indicates that, in such settings, individuals exert more effort on self-reflections, and their reflections are less superficial (Frommelt et al., 2019; Sewall, 2009; Tas et al., 2018). This is important, as teacher educators often perceive their student teachers’ reflections as purely descriptive in nature, lacking deeper reflection (Hatton & Smith, 1995). One useful strategy seems to be to link reflective tasks to students’ own experiences (Liakopoulou, 2012; McDuffie, 2004; Zeichner, 2010). Furthermore, teacher educators stress the importance of reflection as a means of achieving professional development, increasing the general value of reflection. Concerning the expectancy to gain sufficient insights from reflection—referred to as self-concept or self-efficacy for reflection1—EVT suggests that a person will only engage in and persist in reflective activities, even when they are difficult, if they perceive themselves as capable of reflecting at the necessary level and depth.

Self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) proposes different forms of self-determined motivation based on the fulfilment of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and social relatedness. This helps to explain certain long-term effects of reflective arrangements by integrating extrinsic goals into one’s own self. For instance, Fund (2010) shows that peer reflection represents an effective way to encourage learning (see also Cherrington & Loveridge, 2014). We assume that, in such settings, the need to reflect is raised through the fulfilment of the need for social relatedness. Furthermore, research indicates that sound, precise feedback leads to deeper learning through reflection (Brouwer et al., 2017; Kleinknecht & Gröschner, 2016). Giving and receiving feedback activates certain feelings of competence, strengthening one’s need to reflect. Being forced to reflect on a given situation limits feelings of autonomy and, therefore, minimises one’s need to reflect.

By incorporating these theories of learning and motivation, we conceptualise the need to reflect as a motivational resource necessary to engage in reflective thinking, which stems from the interaction of situation-specific opportunities to reflect and personal characteristics.

1.6. Present Study

We consider the need to reflect as a gatekeeper in the reflection process. Theories of learning and motivation can be considered to explain how situation-specific opportunities to reflect and personal characteristics collectively guide the development of individual differences in the need to reflect. Additionally, these theories help deduce how these differences in the need to reflect impact the subsequent reflection process. However, there is no valid approach through which to assess individual differences in the need to reflect. Therefore, this study aims to operationalise the need to reflect. Furthermore, we employ the operationalised scale in a diary study to explore whether daily hassles (i.e., minor, recurring stressors such as student misbehaviour or technical difficulties) and uplifts (i.e., small, positive experiences such as successful student engagement or supportive interactions) in the classroom—conceptualised as situation-specific opportunities—are related to the need to reflect. Finally, we explore whether emotional exhaustion (Maslach & Jackson, 1986) and self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997)—personal characteristics—moderate the relationship between daily hassles and the need to reflect. Seiz et al. (2015) demonstrated that emotional exhaustion moderates the relationship between professional knowledge and classroom management, suggesting that emotionally exhausted teachers may have reduced access to instructional knowledge in demanding situations. Emotional exhaustion can be seen as a depletion of both cognitive capacity and emotional regulation resources. Teachers who experience emotional exhaustion might therefore be less able to process challenging classroom experiences adaptively in the moment, potentially increasing their tendency to dwell on such events and triggering a stronger need to reflect afterward. As self-efficacy for teaching stems mostly from mastery experiences (Bandura, 1997), we suspect that teachers with higher self-efficacy possess various strategies to deal with classroom hassles. When lessons do not go as planned, teachers with higher self-efficacy have more straightforward access to potential alternatives. To those with low self-efficacy, solutions are not obvious, leading to a potentially stronger need to reflect.

While this line of reasoning provides a conceptual background, we emphasise that in the current study, the examination of emotional exhaustion and self-efficacy served primarily to validate the newly developed need-to-reflect construct, rather than to offer in-depth theoretical interpretations.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Design and Sample

To answer our research questions, we utilised a baseline teacher questionnaire and conducted a diary assessment with ten measurement points (see Figure 1). The baseline questionnaire was administered approximately one week prior to the start of the diary assessment, during which teachers were instructed to complete a questionnaire following a specific lesson each day for two school weeks (i.e., 10 measurements). The lessons referenced in the questionnaire were self-selected by the teachers. However, we recommended selecting lessons from subjects that they taught on a regular basis and using the same class across both weeks. Additionally, participants were asked to complete the questionnaire shortly after their chosen lessons. The sample consisted of N = 81 primary school teachers (mean age = 41.63 years; SD = 10.70; mean years of professional experience = 14.31; SD = 10.39) at public schools in rural and urban areas. Two teachers were excluded due to missing data in the diary study. On average, the teachers completed the diary assessment on 8.5 of the 10 days.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. Baseline Teacher Assessment (Between-Teacher Level)

Self-Efficacy for Classroom Management

Self-efficacy in classroom management was assessed using a subscale from Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy’s (2001) teacher self-efficacy scale. Eight items were answered along a 5-point Likert scale (1 = very bad; 5 = very good). Different studies established the factorial and predictive validity of scale scores (e.g., Dicke et al., 2015). The items were aggregated to a scale score (Cronbach’s α = 0.85).

Emotional Exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion was assessed using five items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1986), specifically the German translation from Enzmann and Kleiber (1989). The items were selected based on their frequent use in previous studies on teacher well-being and their conceptual representativeness of the emotional exhaustion dimension. This targeted selection also accounted for time constraints. Participants rated the statements (e.g., “My work has left me emotionally devastated”) along a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree), with sufficient reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.85).

2.2.2. Diary Assessment (Within-Teacher Level)

Need to Reflect

Need to reflect was assessed using a self-developed single item: “I would like to reflect on this lesson in depth to learn something from it for my own actions as a teacher”. Participants responded on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = do not agree at all; 7 = fully agree), with higher values indicating a stronger need to reflect on the specific lesson. We opted for a single-item measure because the construct is conceptualised as a situational motivational state. A multi-item scale would likely lead participants to consider different aspects of reflection in a more analytical way, thus prompting a cognitive process that overlaps with the construct itself. The item was developed collaboratively by a network of ten researchers as part of the theoretical and empirical conceptualization of the construct. As is typical for single-item measures, internal consistency cannot be reported as a reliability indicator. Retest reliability is also not appropriate in this case due to the intended situational sensitivity of the item. Instead, construct validity was supported by embedding the item in a theoretical framework and testing its predictive validity in relation to established determinants of teacher reflection.

Classroom-Related Hassles

To measure classroom-related hassles, we selected three items from the KODEK instrument (Thiel et al., 2013). One item per subdimension of the KODEK was chosen, each representing its respective dimension in a face-valid and parsimonious manner. This selection was guided by theoretical considerations and the need to minimise the burden on participants in a daily diary format. In this context, classroom disturbances are defined as disruptive events or behaviours that interfere with instructional flow or student learning (e.g., talking out of turn, off-task behavior). The selected items capture unsuccessful attempts to address such disturbances (“My many different attempts to prevent disruptions in lessons have not helped much”), the effort required to monitor student behavior (“I noticed immediately today when pupils started to occupy themselves with something else”), and the perceived efficiency in managing instructional time (“Today I managed to use the lesson time efficiently (e.g., starting the lesson on time, no idle time)”). Each item was rated along a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not suitable at all; 5 = fully suitable) and served as a single indicator of a distinct facet of classroom management.

2.3. Analyses

Our data exhibited a hierarchical structure with days (i.e., between-day level; N_Level1 = 709) nested in teachers (i.e., between-teacher level; N_Level2 = 79). Initially, we constructed an unconditional multilevel model to report descriptive statistics for all study variables. To address our research questions, we used multi-level modelling to regress teachers’ need to reflect on classroom-related hassles and uplifts following the procedure described by Sadikaj et al. (2021). Model 1 is a random slopes and random intercepts model in which we specified random slopes reflecting “heterogeneity in the strength of the association between the ebbs and flows [of classroom-related hassles and teachers’ need to reflect] across observations within an individual” (Sadikaj et al., 2021, p. 870). Level 1 predictors were group-mean centered. We also modelled classroom-related hassles at the between-teacher level by aggregating the daily measures for each teacher and subsequently applying grand-mean centring (for a similar procedure, see Ketonen et al., 2018). Gender and years of teaching experience are included as control variables. Models 2a-c also include teachers’ level of emotional exhaustion. Models 3a-c examine cross-level interactions between each random slope and teachers’ level of emotional exhaustion. In a similar vein, models 4a-c include self-efficacy for classroom management, while models 5a-c specify the cross-level interactions between each random slope and teachers’ self-efficacy for classroom management. We used a robust maximum likelihood estimator (MLR) to adjust all standard errors for non-normality in our indicators and full-information maximum likelihood to take missing data into account in Mplus 8.6 (Muthén & Muthén, 2017).

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive Statistics

Across cases and days, the need to reflect is shortly below the scale mean (M = 3.19, SD = 1.81) but ranges from 1 to 7. Furthermore, aggregating across days reveals a person mean of 3.25 (SD = 1.33), showcasing substantial variation between persons. Additionally, the mean absolute deviation around the person mean was 0.84 (SD = 0.47), representing situational variability in the need to reflect. In summary, the need to reflect and classroom-related hassles exhibited greater variation within teachers (i.e., more variation across days than between teachers; see

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of study variables.

		M	SD	ICC	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1.	Self-efficacy for classroom management	3.99	0.57
2.	Emotional exhaustion	2.38	0.84		−0.36
3.	Gender (male = 0, female = 1)	0.80	0.40		0.02	0.05
4.	Teaching experience (years)	14.31	10.39		0.40	−0.29	0.03
5.	Need to reflect	3.19	1.81	0.46	−0.11	0.08	0.08	−0.08
6.	Monitoring student behaviour	3.95	0.99	0.23	0.26	−0.20	0.11	0.08	−0.15
7.	Attempts to address classroom disturbances	1.95	1.10	0.27	−0.35	0.28	0.03	−0.31	0.26	−0.28
8.	Effective management of learning time	3.71	1.07	0.22	0.31	−0.40	0.07	0.28	−0.16	0.43	−0.41

Note. Coefficients in bold are significant at p < 0.05. Correlations between diary assessment variables are calculated at the within-person level. All other correlations are calculated at the between-person level.

).

3.2. Classroom-Related Hassles Increase Teachers’ Need to Reflect

Our first research question addresses the extent to which daily hassles are associated with changes in teachers’ need to reflect. To examine our hypothesis—that higher numbers of daily hassles are accompanied by a stronger need to reflect—we regressed teachers’ need to reflect on daily hassles (random slopes at the within-teacher level) while controlling for teaching experience and gender (between-teacher level). While bivariate correlations indicate expected relationships between all measures of classroom management and the need to reflect (Table 1), the regression coefficients in

Table 2. Unstandardised estimates of the within-person and between-person associations among teachers’ need to reflect and classroom-related hassles.

	Model 1
	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.03	0.19	0.000	[2.66, 3.40]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring student behaviour	−0.15	0.11	0.160	[−0.35, 0.06]
Attempts to address classroom disturbances	0.28	0.08	0.001	[0.12, 0.44]
Effective management of learning time	−0.04	0.07	0.602	[−0.18, 0.11]
Between-teacher level
Gender (male = 0, female = 1)	0.27	0.26	0.301	[−0.24, 0.77]
Teaching experience (years)	−0.01	0.02	0.437	[−0.04, 0.02]
Model fit information
AIC	2515.381
BIC	2592.652
SABIC	2538.673

point only to a significant association between the need to reflect and teachers’ failed attempts to address classroom disturbances. Teachers who reported their attempts to address classroom disturbances failing more often also reported an increase in their need to reflect (B = 0.29, p < 0.001). However, the effective management of learning time and successful monitoring are not associated with a higher need to reflect. At the between-teacher level, neither teaching experience nor gender is associated with the need to reflect.

3.3. Variables That May Moderate the Impact of Daily Hassles on the Need to Reflect

The second research question pertains to whether certain variables (i.e., emotional exhaustion and self-efficacy for classroom management) moderate the effect of daily hassles on teachers’ need to reflect. To probe whether the need to reflect is less affected by classroom-related events in specific lessons among teachers with lower levels of emotional exhaustion, we ran three additional models incorporating a cross-level interaction between teachers’ emotional exhaustion and monitoring of student behaviour, failed attempts to address classroom disturbances, and the effective management of learning time, respectively (

Table 3. Unstandardised estimates of the within-person and between-person associations among teachers’ need to reflect, classroom-related hassles and emotional exhaustion.

	Model 2a (Without Interaction)				Model 3a (With Interaction)
	B	SE	p	95% CI	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.05	0.20	0.000	[2.66, 3.43]	3.05	0.20	0.000	[2.66, 3.43]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring	−0.19	0.10	0.062	[−0.39, 0.01]	−0.19	0.10	0.051	[−0.39, 0.00]
Attempts
Time
Between-teacher level
Emotional exhaustion	0.11	0.19	0.568	[−0.27, 0.49]	0.11	0.19	0.560	[−0.26, 0.48]
Gender a	0.24	0.27	0.367	[−0.29, 0.77]	0.25	0.27	0.362	[−0.28, 0.78]
Teaching experience b	−0.01	0.02	0.618	[−0.04, 0.03]	−0.01	0.02	0.619	[−0.04, 0.03]
EE * Monitoring					0.07	0.15	0.656	[−0.22, 0.35]
EE * Attempts
EE * Time
Model fit information
AIC	2561.007				2562.680
BIC	2601.979				2608.205
SABIC	2573.402				2576.453
	Model 2b (Without Interaction)				Model 3b (With Interaction)
	B	SE	p	95% CI	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.08	0.18	0.000	[2.72, 3.43]	3.08	0.18	0.000	[2.72, 3.44]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring
Attempts	0.35	0.08	0.000	[0.19, 0.51]	0.33	0.07	0.000	[0.19, 0.48]
Time
Between-teacher level
Emotional exhaustion	0.15	0.21	0.469	[−0.26, 0.56]	0.11	0.19	0.565	[−0.27, 0.49]
Gender a	0.21	0.24	0.389	[−0.27, 0.69]	0.20	0.24	0.409	[−0.28, 0.68]
Teaching experience b	−0.01	0.02	0.633	[−0.04, 0.03]	−0.01	0.02	0.611	[−0.04, 0.03]
EE * Monitoring
EE * Attempts					0.19	0.09	0.044	[0.01, 0.37]
EE * Time
Model fit information
AIC	2518.525				2516.316
BIC	2559.459				2561.798
SABIC	2530.882				2530.046
	Model 2c (Without Interaction)				Model 3c (With Interaction)
	B	SE	p	95% CI	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.05	0.19	0.000	[2.68, 3.41]	3.05	0.19	0.000	[2.68, 3.41]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring
Attempts
Time	−0.19	0.07	0.007	[−0.33, −0.05]	−0.19	0.07	0.007	[−0.33, −0.05]
Between-teacher level
Emotional exhaustion	0.11	0.19	0.548	[−0.26, 0.48]	0.11	0.19	0.557	[−0.26, 0.49]
Gender a	0.24	0.25	0.341	[−0.25, 0.73]	0.24	0.25	0.342	[−0.25, 0.73]
Teaching experience b	−0.01	0.02	0.600	[−0.04, 0.03]	−0.01	0.02	0.600	[−0.04, 0.03]
EE * Monitoring
EE * Attempts
EE * Time					−0.03	0.09	0.717	[−0.21, 0.15]
Model fit information
AIC	2568.566				2570.428
BIC	2609.564				2615.981
SABIC	2580.987				2584.229

Note. Monitoring = Monitoring student behaviour; Attempts = Attempts to address classroom disturbances; Time = Effective management of learning time; EE = Emotional exhaustion. ^a Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female. ^b Teaching experience in years.

). Furthermore, three additional models were run along a similar procedure with self-efficacy for classroom management as a potential moderator (

Table 4. Unstandardised estimates of the within-person and between-person associations among teachers’ need to reflect, classroom-related hassles and self-efficacy for classroom management.

	Model 4a (Without Interaction)				Model 5a (With Interaction)
	B	SE	p	95% CI	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.03	0.20	0.000	[2.64, 3.42]	3.03	0.20	0.000	[2.64, 3.42]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring	−0.19	0.10	0.061	[−0.39, 0.01]	−0.19	0.10	0.054	[−0.39, 0.00]
Attempts
Time
Between-teacher level
Self-efficacy	−0.21	0.27	0.440	[−0.75, 0.32]	−0.21	0.27	0.434	[−0.74, 0.32]
Gender a	0.26	0.27	0.327	[−0.26, 0.79]	0.27	0.27	0.319	[−0.26, 0.79]
Teaching experience b	−0.01	0.02	0.656	[−0.04, 0.02]	−0.01	0.02	0.658	[−0.04, 0.02]
SE * Monitoring					−0.16	0.21	0.448	[−0.58, 0.26]
SE * Attempts
SE * Time
Model fit information
AIC	2560.898				2562.178
BIC	2601.871				2607.703
SABIC	2573.294				2575.951
	Model 4b (Without Interaction)				Model 5b (With Interaction)
	B	SE	p	95% CI	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.05	0.18	0.000	[2.69, 3.41]	3.05	0.18	0.000	[2.69, 3.41]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring
Attempts	0.35	0.08	0.000	[0.19, 0.51]	0.35	0.08	0.000	[0.19, 0.50]
Time
Between-teacher level
Self-efficacy	−0.21	0.26	0.422	[−0.73, 0.31]	−0.21	0.27	0.434	[−0.73, 0.32]
Gender a	0.24	0.25	0.331	[−0.24, 0.72]	0.24	0.25	0.332	[−0.24, 0.72]
Teaching experience b	−0.01	0.02	0.628	[−0.04, 0.02]	−0.01	0.02	0.628	[−0.04, 0.02]
SE * Monitoring
SE * Attempts					−0.02	0.17	0.912	[−0.34, 0.31]
SE * Time
Model fit information
AIC	2518.659				2520.645
BIC	2559.593				2566.128
SABIC	2531.016				2534.376
	Model 4c (Without Interaction)				Model 5c (With Interaction)
	B	SE	p	95% CI	B	SE	p	95% CI
Intercept	3.03	0.19	0.000	[2.66, 3.40]	3.03	0.19	0.000	[2.66, 3.40]
Within-teacher level
Monitoring
Attempts
Time	−0.19	0.07	0.007	[−0.33, −0.05]	−0.20	0.07	0.005	[−0.33, −0.06]
Between-teacher level
Self-efficacy	−0.22	0.27	0.422	[−0.75, 0.31]	−0.22	0.27	0.408	[−0.75, 0.30]
Gender a	0.26	0.25	0.308	[−0.24, 0.76]	0.26	0.25	0.305	[−0.24, 0.76]
Teaching experience b	−0.01	0.02	0.642	[−0.04, 0.02]	−0.01	0.02	0.651	[−0.04, 0.02]
SE * Monitoring
SE * Attempts
SE * Time					−0.16	0.15	.279	[−0.45, 0.13]
Model fit information
AIC	2568.454				2569.125
BIC	2609.452				2614.679
SABIC	2580.875				2582.926

Note. Monitoring = Monitoring student behaviour; Attempts = Attempts to address classroom disturbances; Time = Effective management of learning time; SE = Self-efficacy for classroom management. ^a Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female. ^b Teaching experience in years.

).

Concerning emotional exhaustion, a significant cross-level interaction was obtained for the relationship between attempts to address classroom disturbances and emotional exhaustion (B = 0.19, p = 0.044; Table 3). Teachers with higher levels of emotional exhaustion (1 SD above average) exhibited a stronger association between attempts to address classroom disturbances and the need to reflect (B = 0.50, p < 0.001) than teachers with lower levels of emotional exhaustion (1 SD below average: B = 0.20, p = 0.032; Figure 2). Put another way, among teachers with a relatively high level of emotional exhaustion, their need to reflect changed more strongly following lessons that featured unsuccessful attempts to address disturbances. The cross-level interactions between teachers’ emotional exhaustion and the successful monitoring of student behaviour or management of learning time were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Concerning self-efficacy for classroom management, no significant cross-level interactions could be obtained (p > 0.05).

4. Discussion

Reflection is a central topic when it comes to teacher education. Despite its acknowledged importance in educational research, the focus in the field is largely on fostering reflective capacities and/or enhancing the quality of reflective products. Researchers seldom address the individual characteristics or situational circumstances associated with the reflection process. Based in motivation theory, we established the construct of teachers’ need to reflect to describe the state of an individual person characterised by an urge to acquire a deeper understanding of a specific incident or situation. This need to reflect starts the reflection process and helps to keep it going—despite any potential obstacles. We conceptualised teachers’ need to reflect as an interaction of personal and situational characteristics: (a) the same person may perceive different levels of need to reflect depending on the specific situation and (b) the same situation may lead to different levels of need to reflect depending on personal characteristics.

To address research questions concerning the personal and situational variability of reflection processes mediated by teachers’ need to reflect, we propose an assessment approach based on a single item, making it time-efficient and suitable for employment in experience sampling approaches, where data are collected during the reflection process. We used this item within a diary study over the course of 10 days (two school weeks). The results of this study indicate substantial situational and personal variability in teachers’ need to reflect. Furthermore, they suggest that teachers’ need to reflect is related to their perception of classroom-related hassles: Teachers who perceived their management of learning time as sufficient reported a reduced need to reflect, whereas classroom situations in which teachers were not able to deal with disturbances led to a relatively strong need to reflect. This is consistent with the idea that individuals thrive on a reduction in cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) and actively pursue more knowledge; in other words, they reorganise their cognitive schemes, as outlined by Piaget or other research on conceptual change in science education (e.g., Vosniadou, 2008).

Teachers with higher levels of emotional exhaustion reported a stronger need to reflect in situations where repeated attempts to manage classroom disturbances were unsuccessful. This finding aligns with the idea that emotional exhaustion may deplete cognitive and emotional resources, thereby limiting immediate access to instructional strategies and amplifying the need to process such situations retrospectively. However, we caution against overinterpreting this result, as the role of emotional exhaustion was not the primary focus of the study but rather included to support the construct validity of the need-to-reflect measure. Future research could build on this finding by more thoroughly investigating the interplay between emotional exhaustion and reflective processes in teaching practice.

However, self-efficacy in classroom management did not moderate the relationship between classroom-related hassles and the need to reflect. One possible explanation lies in the domain-specific nature of the self-efficacy measure used. Since we focused on self-efficacy in the context of classroom management, it may not have captured aspects of self-efficacy that are more directly related to reflective processes—such as teachers’ beliefs in their capacity to learn from and adapt to complex or ambiguous situations. While self-efficacy is known to be situation-specific (Zimmermann, 2000), reflective engagement may depend on broader or more metacognitive forms of self-efficacy. Moreover, it is important to note that the inclusion of self-efficacy in our study primarily served exploratory and construct-validating purposes, rather than providing a comprehensive account of its moderating role. Future research might therefore benefit from distinguishing more clearly between task-specific and reflection-related self-efficacy beliefs.

4.1. Limitations and Future Research

To our knowledge, this study is the first to assess the motivational components underlying the reflection process, providing valuable new insights. However, it still has a few limitations. In our diary study, teachers were asked to complete the questionnaire immediately following their lessons, enabling them to express their current need to reflect. They also recalled classroom-related hassles while their memories of them remained fresh, thereby reducing recall biases. However, engaging in self-assessment during cognitive processes can affect the processes themselves. Thus, we cannot rule out that their reflection on the need to reflect influenced that very need. Moreover, we had a clear focus on classroom management, but classroom management may not be the only content worth reflecting on for the teachers. Future research would benefit from exploring other pedagogical situations—such as teachers’ success in cognitively engaging or motivating students—which could lead to varying degrees of needing to reflect.

We would also like to note that our non-significant interaction effects should be interpreted with caution. While our Level-2 sample size is consistent with previous research, it may not offer sufficient statistical power to detect cross-level interaction effects, which are typically small in magnitude (Mathieu et al., 2012). Larger sample sizes in future studies would be beneficial to more reliably test such effects.

We establish teachers’ need to reflect as a central construct within the reflection process. However, the present study focused solely on identifying predictors of this need and did not investigate whether it leads to actual engagement in reflective practices or behavioural change. While it is plausible that a heightened need to reflect fosters deeper reflective thinking and facilitates professional development (e.g., through instructional adjustments), this assumption remains empirically untested. Future studies should aim to link the need to reflect more directly to observable outcomes—such as changes in teaching behavior, learning gains, or participation in targeted professional development—in order to validate its functional relevance within the broader reflection process.

Further, our measures of classroom management relied solely on teacher self-reports. While previous research suggests that self-reports can provide valid insights into classroom management practices (Clunies-Ross et al., 2008; Kunter & Baumert, 2007), they are also subject to biases such as social desirability or limited self-awareness. To strengthen the validity of findings, future studies could benefit from triangulating self-report data with additional sources such as classroom observations or student ratings. This multimethod approach would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics between instructional quality and teachers’ need to reflect, and might also reveal whether relationships differ depending on the data source.

Finally, the present study used single-item measurements for key constructs. This decision was made due to the constraints of the diary study design, which required a concise daily format to ensure participant compliance and reduce response fatigue. However, single-item measures may be more susceptible to measurement error, potentially obscuring existing effects. It is therefore plausible that a more nuanced, multi-item assessment of the constructs could yield clearer evidence for the hypothesised relationships. Future research may consider focusing on a smaller set of constructs while employing multi-item scales to enhance the construct validity and improve the sensitivity of the analyses.

4.2. Contribution to Research on Reflection

Most research on reflection is focused on the quality of reflection products or ways of bolstering the quality of reflective thinking, such as guided reflection (Husu et al., 2008; Nagro et al., 2017). However, not everyone wants to be guided in their reflection or even reflect on a specific situation in general. Additionally, reflection at higher levels requires intensive and resource-consuming thinking and potential obstacles to be overcome. As such, reflection requires a certain degree of engagement, willingness and persistence. Integrating theories of motivation into models of reflective processes helps to address those issues and moves us closer to an explanation of interindividual differences.

The established need to reflect as a construct, situated at the intersection of personal and situational characteristics, and the operationalisation presented in our study can collectively serve as a versatile tool for gaining insights into motivational processes in subsequent studies. Research may examine which pedagogical situations increase or decrease teachers’ need to reflect. Moreover, a teacher’s need to reflect may vary across different pedagogical situations (e.g., following classroom disturbances vs. insufficient cognitive activation), with individual characteristics like self-efficacy, professional knowledge and emotional exhaustion potentially playing a role. Finally, future research could explore whether (pre-service) teachers with different personal characteristics (e.g., higher self-efficacy, professional knowledge) benefit more from a higher need to reflect due to a higher capacity to leverage the reflection processes in a way that advances their own professional development.

4.3. Contribution to Teacher Education

As reflection is central to teachers’ professional development, university teacher education grounds the ability to reflect in pedagogical situations. Research indicates that reflective abilities must be systematically developed within university teacher education. Although various approaches promise satisfactory results, the individual uptake of learning opportunities by pre-service teachers is critical to their success.

One potential factor is the learning motivation perceived by pre-service teachers in learning situations. The proposed construct of teachers’ need to reflect and its operationalisation may help teacher educators gain an understanding of their students’ current motivation. Furthermore, teacher educators may use the item in research designs to gain an understanding of the examples they use in their courses. Perhaps pre-service teachers perceive certain learning examples as less interesting (i.e., lower need to reflect) than teacher educators may suggest. Following this approach, lesson examples could be structured and tailored to the specific needs of pre-service teachers.