Novice Teachers' Reasoning when Analysing Educational Cases

This article examines the reasoning of 25 novice teachers as they analysed cases that took place in the course of their teaching. The data were derived from a set of case analyses written by novice teachers and were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analyses. Their reasoning was examined in three stages: the description of the case, the proposed solutions of the dilemma and the choice of preferred solution. The data revealed the following trends: (a) at all three stages the teachers focused on the persons actively involved in the case (learners, teacher) and rarely on the wider circles of the school and the community; (b) at the first and second stages the teachers related mainly to the learners, and at the third stage to the teacher; (c) the teachers focused on dimensions identified as directly related to the cases (behavioural, emotional, academic) and far less on aspects indirectly touching upon them (socio-economic, cultural); (d) the teachers related mainly to the immediate effect of the prop...