...Evaluating Reflective Practice

Assuming you understand that reflective practice can support professional development, how do you actually go about it?  And how do you know that you are going about it correctly?  

What is 'good' or 'effective' reflection?

This post presents a framework of prompts to assist the reflective practitioner in evaluating and developing the way he or she reflects.  Using this matrix of questions may help you to develop appropriately critical reflection. This would facilitate broader perspective, deeper insight into situations, and more reliable implications for potential future action.

This framework for developing critical reflection is based on the work of Ghaye (1996), who outlines 5 characteristic 'types' of reflection-on-practice. 

Descriptive  Perceptive  Receptive  Critical  Interactive  

Each type is described below, with example questions that can serve as prompts for thinking and writing.  Your reflection, in whatever form it takes, should engage with each of the five types of reflection, although not necessarily all of them all the time. It is up to you how you apply, structure and present this model. It may be that you begin with a description of some aspect of practice and go on to address each of the characteristics, in the order presented below.

The questions provided with each section are examples of prompts to help you engage at each of the different 'levels' of reflection. They do not all need to be answered directly. In fact, doing so would not be an appropriate approach to reflecting on thoughts or experiences.  There are likely to be other questions you can ask yourself, and there are also certainly other approaches which would support valuable reflection.

Descriptive Reflection

This involves describing an event, incident, encounter or aspect of your practice. Start with a non-judgmental, factual account.  By doing this, you place your experience in context–what, where, when and with whom. Descriptive reflection-on-practice may be written in different forms such as a simple sentence, a story or a diary of events. It may have a conversational tone but will, by its very nature, represent your view of what happened.

Reflecting descriptively can be facilitated by asking a series of questions about what you saw or experienced, such as:

• What happened?
• What did I do? 
• Where was I? 
• Who was I interacting with, and who else was in range of the interaction? 

Perceptive Reflection

This involves linking the description of an experience to your thoughts and feelings about it. This type of reflection communicates a sense of what you felt and possible explanations for your feelings. There is a strong case for including references to your values, identity and beliefs at this point.

Reflecting perceptively can be facilitated by asking a series of questions about how you felt or feel about what you experienced, such as:

• What was I thinking and feeling at the time?
• What assumptions was I making? 
• What values and beliefs influenced my decision/s to act in the way I did? 
• How do I feel about the events now? 

Receptive Reflection

This involves considering a range of ideas, readings, feedback or advice, and incorporating these perspectives into your thinking. Receptive reflection should offer the opportunity to link your thoughts, feelings and actions to those of others. In receptive reflection-on-practice you will be positioning your experience within the context of your workplace practices and policies, and possibly in relation to ideas and thinking about reading and research. 

Reflecting receptively can be facilitated by asking a questions about other perspectives, and the broader context of your experience, such as:

• How did other people involved perceive what happened?
• How are my actions influenced by rules, or local/national policy?
• What contextual factors may be limiting my view of what happened?
• How can what happened be further understood or challenged through reading/theory?

Critical Reflection

This 'type' of reflection involves questioning practices and policies, exploring motivations, and exposing assumptions and contradictions.  A willingness analyse experience in terms of power and politics is essential to support deeper, critical exploration of issues.

Reflecting critically can be facilitated by asking questions about your thinking and experience, such as:

• Why did I act, think or feel the way I did?
• In what ways is this experience or incident part of a pattern or routine? 
• How could the context of the event be challenged or changed, and what would result?
• What are the flaws or omissions in my thinking/the conclusions I have drawn about the event? 

Interactive Reflection

This involves linking the learning from reflection - the understanding gained from raising your awareness about experience - to possible future action/s. At this stage you might propose solutions or improvements to practice, giving a rationale for your ideas.  

Reflecting interactively can be facilitated by asking questions about developing practices, such as:

• What have I learned about my actions/practice from my reflection?
• How am I thinking differently about my behaviour?
• What changes or improvements can be made, and what would the outcomes be?
• How are proposed actions/changes/improvements supported by evidence, theory or research?

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Accessing aspects of each of these 5 types of reflection-on-practice should support your thinking about experience in a way that results in learning and development - 'good' reflective practice. If aspects of this framework are missing from your reflections then these might be considered areas for development. 

To reiterate, they are not intended to be presented as a hierarchy, or as a fixed sequence. However, guidance on reflective practice often cites description as an important initial step. Also, as a primary aim of professional reflection is to raise awareness and to learn about practice, the identification of solutions or 'next steps' should perhaps be left until the final stage.  

There is also an argument for engaging 'critical' reflection throughout the process, rather than having it as a discrete 'type'.  Food for thought.... Until my next post, in which I shall examine samples of reflective writing through the lens of these 5 characteristics.

Reference

Ghaye, T. (1996) An Introduction to Learning Through Critical Reflective Practice. Newcastle: Pentaxion  Ltd

Further Reading

Ayres, D. (2014) Reflective Journals. Available at: https://danieljayres.blogspot.com/2014/11/reflective-journals.html (Accessed: Feb 21).

Cottrell, S. (2005) Critical Thinking Skills. Palgrave Macmillan.

Ghaye, T. (2010) Teaching and learning through reflective practice: A practical guide for positive action (2nd edn). Oxon: Routledge.

Moon, J. (1999) Reflection in Learning and Professional Development. Kogan Page, London.

University of Hull (no date) Reflective Models. Available at: http://mmiweb.org.uk/hull/1_hullpgce/assessment/ass_supp_secondary/reflection/reflectionmodels.html (Accessed: Feb 21).