Written professional noticing across reflective tasks: Comparing lesson observation and self-video analysis in preservice teacher learning

Professional noticing is often conceptualized as an individual professional capacity, yet less attention has been paid to its representation across reflective tasks. This study examines how preservice teachers’ written professional noticing differs between lesson observation notes and self-video analysis notes. Drawing on 155 reflective texts and 1157 episodes, we combined episode-level coding, generalized linear mixed-effects modeling, and qualitative illustrations to compare lesson observation notes with self-video analysis notes. Lesson observation notes contained more recorded classroom episodes, whereas self-video analysis was positively associated with interpretive reasoning in both cohorts and with specific actionable responses overall. Student-focused attention and closed-loop noticing showed cohort-dependent task associations. These findings indicate that written professional noticing varies across reflective task conditions and that some task-associated patterns are more context-sensitive than others. This task-sensitive perspective contributes to teacher education by showing how reflective assignments may differentially structure the written representation of professional noticing.