Reflective Practice

Definitions

Desiderius Erasmus (1469–1536) once stated that ‘reflection is a flower of the mind, giving out wholesome fragrance; but revelry is the same flower, when rank and running to seed’. The important message from Erasmus seems to be that reflection involves effort, design and purpose by being something more than idle thought. Indeed, dictionary definitions of reflection generally refer to the cognitive activity of reflection as careful thought or consideration. However, this definition does not quite capture the meaning applied to reflection by academics, educationalists and practitioners engaged in using reflection in practice. For example, Dewey defined reflective thinking as a number of phases involving a state of doubt, hesitation and mental difficulty. This results in action that will resolve the incongruity.

David Boud and his colleagues have described reflection as a process involving both emotion and cognition that results in a new understanding of a phenomenon. Don Schön, like John Dewey, saw reflective practice as thoughtful consideration of one’s previous experience while connecting theory to practice. While reflection can be a quite unconscious process without purpose, most practitioners who use the term reflective practice take it to be a deliberate activity that has a method and can be taught. It is often thought as a continuous activity and, in some cases, a response to critical incidents that occur in one’s life or work.

Some, however, take reflection to be somewhat more than changing what one does and include examining the deeper aspects of oneself, such as motivation, emotional response, values and beliefs. The reflective process involved in Buddhism is an obvious case in point, although this understanding of reflection is seen in more secular activities such as education, psychology and sociology. In this conceptualization, reflection is sometimes perhaps confused with the notion of reflexivity, which involves the process of examining cause-and-effect relationships. In particular, reflexivity, as it applies to the social sciences, concerns self-referent behaviour arising out of action. Reflection is commonly and inappropriately taken to mean the same as reflexivity.

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