The Promotion of Reflective Practice in Teachers’ Professional Development
A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102). This special issue belongs to the section "Teacher Education".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2026 | Viewed by 11
Special Issue Editor
Interests: the development of teacher reflective practice; physical education teacher education; pedagogical models in the context of physical education and sports training
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Reflective practice has long been positioned as a cornerstone of professional learning in teaching, enabling educators to critically examine their actions, beliefs, and decision-making to enhance pedagogical quality and student learning. Conceptualized as both reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action, reflective practice supports the integration of experiential knowledge into theory, fostering intentional, contextually informed, and ethically grounded teaching.
Within educational contexts, reflective practice is particularly vital due to the subject’s inherently complex, dynamic, and ecological nature. Teachers operate in learning environments characterized by unpredictability, social interaction, and multiple contextual constraints related to the space, equipment, curriculum, and student diversity. These conditions require continuous pedagogical judgement and adaptive expertise, positioning reflection as central in understanding practice and responding meaningfully to situational demands.
Empirical research suggests that reflective practice contributes to the development of pedagogical content knowledge, professional identity, and instructional decision-making. However, the literature also reveals important gaps.
This Special Issue will advance our conceptual, empirical, and methodological understanding of reflective practice in educational contexts across initial teacher education, induction, and continuing professional development. We welcome contributions that critically examine theoretical frameworks of reflection; investigate pedagogical strategies, tools, and learning designs that foster reflective capacity (e.g., mentoring, video-based reflection, collaborative inquiry, digital technologies); and report empirical studies that demonstrate the processes, conditions, and outcomes of reflective practice in diverse contexts. Submissions may adopt qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approaches and address multiple levels of analysis, including individual teachers, communities of practice, programmes, and systems. We particularly encourage work that engages with the ecological, relational, and socio-cultural dimensions of education, foregrounds issues of equity and ethics, and moves beyond descriptive accounts to offer robust, transferable insights. Together, the papers in this Special Issue will inform research, teacher education, and professional learning by articulating how reflective practice can be meaningfully developed, sustained, and leveraged to enhance the quality and impact of school education.
Dr. Rui Araújo
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- teacher collaborative work
- teacher professional development
- teacher reflective practice
- teacher reflection levels
- teacher reflection skills and strategies
- teacher critical reflection
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