Linguistic Indicators of Reflective Practice Among Music Education Majors

The purpose of this study was to examine linguistic indicators of reflective practice in preservice music teachers’ written reflections following peer-teaching experiences. In an instrumental rehearsal techniques course, eight preservice music educators completed four peer-teaching episodes and submitted a written reflection after each episode. Reflections were analyzed with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to examine students’ usage of pronouns (first-person singular, first-person plural, third-person singular, and third-person plural), temporal focus words (past-, present-, and future-focused words), and affect words (positive- and negative-emotion words). Results indicated significantly more first-person singular words over all other types of pronouns, fewer future-focused words than past- or present-focused words, and more positive-emotion words than negative-emotion words. These linguistic results were observed across all episodes (i.e., they did not change across time). Results are interpreted in light of previous linguistic analysis literature, and implications for music teacher educators are discussed