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The practice of reflection

2004; Wiley; Volume: 3; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1473-6861.2004.00066.x

1473-6861

Michael Eraut,

Reflective Practices in Education

Learning in Health and Social CareVolume 3, Issue 2 p. 47-52 Free Access The practice of reflection Professor Michael Eraut, Editor Search for more papers by this author Professor Michael Eraut, Editor Search for more papers by this author First published: 17 May 2004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-6861.2004.00066.xCitations: 27AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat The term 'reflection' is now in such common use in professional education that there is considerable danger of it being taken for granted, rather than treated as problematic. Are we ceasing to be reflective about how we use 'reflection' in our discourse and in our practice? How do we practice reflection, and does it achieve what we claim it achieves? As 'reflection' has many meanings and can be found embedded in many different forms of practice, some charting of these variations is needed if we are to avoid generalizing over too wide a range of reflection contexts. For example, when I scanned my bookcase for help with this editorial, I noticed that the word 'reflection' often appears in the indices of philosophy and education books, but rarely in psychology books. My first recourse was to my elderly edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, where I decided first to omit the scientific definitions relating to the reflection of light. This reminded me that white light does not change its nature when reflected, but does change when refracted. Yet, in educational usage, we expect reflection to change the nature of our thinking, and hope that it does not cause any refraction. Such are the histories of words! Second, I decided to confine my attention to reflection as a process, rather than reflections as outcomes of a process. Third, I set out to avoid making distinctions that are too rigid for mapping the discourse about reflection. This process of elimination left me with at least three meanings for 'reflection': 1 The action of turning (back) or fixing our thoughts on some subject; meditation, deep or serious consideration. 2 Recollection or remembrance of a thing. 3 The mode, operation or faculty by which the mind has knowledge of itself and its operations, or by which it deals with the ideas received from sensation and perception. Only the first of these entries is compatible with the current use of the term 'reflection' in discourse about education or learning. The 'fixing of thoughts' suggests that reflection is a focused activity; and the words 'deep' and 'serious' imply that it goes beneath the surface of the taken-for-granted. Both of these ideas are frequently used in today's discourse and I will return to them below. However, defining reflection as a recollection is highly problematic. A particular recollection often triggers an episode of reflection, during which that recollection is amplified and other recollections also come to mind. Thus, recollections feature in reflection processes, without being reflections themselves. The third definition has to be separated into its two parts. The expression 'mind has knowledge of itself' is a good definition of what we now call 'meta-cognition'. Again, meta-cognition features in reflections, although not necessarily all reflections, and meta-cognition, like recollection, can occur without there being any recognizable reflective process. Finally, 'dealing with' messages received from 'sensation and perception' (I cannot accept the word 'ideas' in this context) is what I would call 'apprehension', rather than meta-cognition; and apprehension commonly occurs without any reflection. Apprehension only triggers reflection when something threatening or unusual is noticed. My first attempt to analyse reflection was prompted by my unease over the rapid appropriation, by professional educators, of Schon's (1983, 1987) distinction between reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, in spite of my admiration for his earlier work. My argument (Eraut 1995) was that Schon's examples failed to sustain the apparent clarity of his argument because his analysis ignored critical features of their context. Schon starts by introducing his concept of reflection-in-action through examples of 'hot action', such as improvization in a jazz group, the sportsman's reading of the game, or a teacher deciding to change the activity currently being pursued (or otherwise) by a class of children; then moves to examples of reflection during 'cold action', when there is plenty of time to stop and think without feeling rushed. To me these are quite different forms of reflection. The first entails a rapid reading of the situation and an equally rapid response in an intuitive mode, which depends a great deal on prior experience of similar situations and working with the same people. The second is a more deliberative approach and involves a more explicit form of thinking; indeed, most of the latter examples describe problem-solving situations. Another problem with these latter examples concerns the boundaries of the action. The 'hot action' examples were all contained within single periods of action, what I like to call 'performance periods', during which there was very little thinking space, at the very most a coffee break and often not even that. In contrast, the 'cold action' examples were more like projects, and varied in length from about 1 month to over 2 years. In these cases, it was often impossible to decide whether a particular period of reflection was on one part of the action or in another part of the action. There was no consistency in the text, but I was alerted to the possibility that a period of reflection could be both on some previous action and in the project at the same time. The prepositions could be used in tandem, rather than in opposition. This then led me to devise a simple three-dimensional framework for analysing periods of reflection of any length, instead of being imprisoned by an increasingly questionable dichotomy. The first dimension concerns the context that I have just been discussing. To describe the context means including both the immediate context, in which the reflection being examined is occurring, and any larger project or organization in which that context is situated. Then there are the participants in the reflection and their respective backgrounds, roles and perspectives; any significant events or decisions that preceded or followed the reflection period; and any other matters of possible significance. The second dimension concerns the focus of the reflection, as emphasized in the first dictionary meaning cited above. Important aspects of this include switches of focus and their significance, different people trying to pursue different foci in the same group, depth of focus and avoidance of possible relevant topics. I will return to this issue below. The third dimension is that of purpose, where Schon's contribution is possibly less recognized. Before Schon wrote 'The Reflective Practitioner', the concept of reflection tended to be used in the context of Dewey's central emphasis on learning from experience and its re-popularization in the early 1970s by Kolb (1984) in the contexts of adult education and management education. This focused mainly on past events, and its educational purpose was to learn from past experience in order to be better prepared for future problems and decisions. What Schon achieved was to convince many people that reflection on current and ongoing actions could be used, indeed was already being used, to improve the quality of those actions through on-the-spot decisions or decisions made soon after the reflection period had concluded. Purpose is probably the most difficult dimension to handle at the macro level, although focus may sometimes present similar difficulties. Context becomes more challenging when trying to elicit the impact of relationships on a reflective process, especially when reflection is proceeding in a group context. The first problem for professional educators is that reflection periods within teaching programmes usually have to focus on learning for the future. There is little time to pursue the details of a context when only one participant is located in it, and novices, in particular, may have limited awareness of many significant contextual factors. This need not prevent it from being a useful learning opportunity, but it makes the reflection pattern very different from that among more experienced practitioners working in the same team and may even brand group reflection as an activity only undertaken by novices. For novice reflections to be situated more in the current action, clinical teachers or mentors are needed who can trigger reflective periods on-the-job, where there is greater immediacy and more shared knowledge of the context. Another problem is that the purpose of a reflection episode is not always clear, and may differ among the participants. Sometimes it appears to undergo quick changes, almost at random, either when an individual is reflecting rather hazily or when members of a group have very different agendas. Reflection is often spontaneous for individuals or among friends, because people typically recollect and reflect on incidents that have had a strong emotional impact on them, puzzled them, or been apprehended as of special importance or significance. The immediate purpose may be to cross-check with others, or to put one's mind at rest so that the incident does not cause too many sleepless nights. Even when group reflection periods are organized and facilitated, they are likely to be taken over by such pressing, spontaneous agendas without regard for any other stated purpose. Sometimes this works well for a whole group, sometimes for only a minority. The problem is how to recognize the high learning potential of such emotionally rich situations and to gradually focus attention on extracting key issues and addressing them in a manner that leaves participants better prepared for any similar incidents in the future. The probability of this kind of outcome will depend on having sufficient time, the quality of the relationships within the group and the expertise of any facilitator(s). Thus, reflection requires both considerable flexibility and sufficient attention to purpose to ensure that, over time, all participants recognize the value of the time they devote to it. Let me return once more to consider group contexts for reflection in education settings. The size of a group is particularly important, because not only does it limit the number of any individual's contributions but it also creates a self-imposed or group-imposed limit on the length, and therefore the detail, of individual narratives. The highly summarized accounts of incidents that result may still lead to some cross-fertilization of ideas, but are unlikely to trigger much reflection if they lack the detail that engages the listener's imagination and provides possible links to the listener's own experience. When we turn to meetings of work-based groups, finding time for reflection poses even greater problems, as does continuity of attendance. Relationships are even more critical as, apart from certain continuing professional education (CPD) settings, they are already present in the work context and are expected to continue after the meeting. The rivalries and micropolitics of the workplace cannot easily be put aside, and the general climate of the workplace will probably dominate the meeting. Only a pre-existing positive learning climate, or a topic of great interest, but little threat, is likely to sustain any constructive reflection. Even a very friendly workplace can fail to provide an appropriate climate for reflection, because it is quite normal for discussions about work to develop mutual affinity, and even some mutual emotional support, without showing any inclination to discuss practice in sufficient detail for anyone to appear as less than perfect. In spite of the obvious benefits of sharing practices, there is still a personal and social risk to be overcome by every participant. Already, I am guilty of over-generalization. The groups of practitioners described above were those whose participants met frequently because of the way their work was organized. But the degree to which colleagues' work is intervisible varies greatly, not only with the type of job, but also with the nature of each particular work environment. Hospital wards offer varying degrees of intervisibility, open-plan offices more than cubicles, and classrooms virtually none. Those working in the community and visiting clients in their homes are usually far from the gaze of other professionals. These practical differences have a huge influence on professionals' informal knowledge of their colleagues' work practices, limit their ability to extract meaning from colleagues' accounts of their work, and restrict the range and precision of their professional discourse. The temptation is to assume that your own interpretation of what a colleague says about their practice is reasonably accurate. This is a big assumption. I have often encountered both situations, where those who present similar accounts of their practice work very differently, and situations where those who present opposing accounts of their practice work in a rather similar way. The gap between practice and talk about practice can be very wide indeed, an issue to which I will return below. If I have over-emphasized formal group contexts for reflection, it is because we know more about them, although not very much that is generalizable. Another context explicitly designed to have a reflective purpose is that of clinical supervision, which claims to offer fuller and deeper reflective analyses of issues and problems arising from professional work than would be possible in larger groups. From a quality assurance and safety perspective, priority access to such supervision should be offered to those who see clients on their own in challenging circumstances. To this I would add those whose work has a high emotional content; and it is this group who are now demanding it. However, access to clinical supervision is still very limited; because hospitals are short-staffed, it is seen as expensive and there is limited research evidence of its impact on practice. Research into its wider impact on learning, retention and quality improvement is now urgent. It would also be helpful to develop other approaches to facilitating reflection at a deeper level, such as providing clinical supervision to novices in pairs and then moving to peer supervision with occasional meetings with their former clinical supervisor. Many organizations have mentoring arrangements for newly qualified staff, whose purpose is ill-defined; probably only those mentors with clearly established frameworks for mentoring and appropriate training for the role will be likely to engage in much facilitation of reflection. Most reflection, however, is a solitary affair about which little is known. The timing and location of such reflection is not often conducive to self-recording and, if it were, such recording would probably change the nature of the reflection. When it is difficult enough to find time to reflect in any sustainable way, the prospect of recording it is rarely welcome. Those who like the idea of keeping a professional diary are probably a small minority. Moreover, there would be considerable difficulty in agreeing on what might count as reflection, and even greater difficulty in trying to describe it. It might be more realistic to engage people in occasional periods of reflection for a particular purpose that they perceived as a priority. But this depends on what professionals and their employers consider to be both feasible and desirable. At the very least it should be possible to promote working practices that facilitate good relationships and encourage short workplace conversations with a reflective aspect, and a climate that encourages people to suggest new ideas and to question current practices and assumptions. This brings me to my third dimension, the focus of reflection. To what extent do people choose to focus their reflection on some particular topic, problem, issue or episode? Or do they just go along with whatever comes to mind? When they make a conscious choice, what alternatives or factors do they consider? Are there issues that they consciously or subconsciously avoid? This will vary with the purpose, but what purposes do they even consider? Their purpose may be purely personal. They may want to make sense of something that happened to them or puzzled them; or to think about whether they could have done something differently. When their focus is on a particular client or group of clients for whom they have some responsibility, they may feel a need to involve other people as well. This leads to questions about the likely responses of those other people to any attempt to engage them in joint reflection about the progress or wellbeing of that client or group of clients. Are they likely to be interested in discussing it? Thus, decisions about the use of reflection may depend on whether those concerned have sufficient confidence in their ability to engage with other people on their intended focus, and this, in turn, will depend on their experience, workplace relationships and seniority. Where this confidence is lacking, they will refrain from engaging others and thus restrict the range of possible actions that their reflection might suggest. More junior practitioners will probably be even more reluctant to raise administrative or systemic issues, unless they feel very sure of getting support. Thus, their disposition to extend reflection beyond the purely personal will be determined by their assessment of collegial or managerial interest or support. Managers, on the other hand, have more freedom to take action after a period of reflection, but may also feel constrained when their reflections take them into decision areas associated with more senior managers, or even committees. This may deter them from informing senior people about problem areas, especially if they think that they might be censored rather than welcomed if they raised certain topics. Often, they will feel that they are too busy handling their own responsibilities without impinging on those of others. A rather different problem arises when reflecting on matters that also concern and affect their subordinates. Those they manage are both important sources of information, especially about clients, and people whose support will be needed in order to make any changes. They may well choose to reflect and consult for some time about what to prioritize and what processes to use in tackling a problem or changing certain local (i.e. within their jurisdiction) policies or practices; and their judgement will partly depend on their relationships with, and knowledge of, the people most concerned. The initial emphasis could be on diagnosis, evaluation, wider consultation, or even implementation. In all these cases, however, their thinking is likely to have been informed by understandings developed by many previous periods of reflection – some very short and some quite long, some involving others and some only personal, some fairly focused and some spontaneous. These myriads of reflections will have contributed to their construction of professional expertise relevant to the current situation. Finally, I wish to discuss two prominent ideas in the literature on reflection: Argyris & Schon's distinction between single and double-loop learning; and the widely discussed concept of critical reflection. Argyris & Schon (1974) first developed their notion of single- and double-loop learning through their research on the learning of mid-career professionals and managers. Their first finding was that professionals used two types of theory – their espoused theories (their justifications for what they do and their explicit reasons for it), and their theories in use (those often implicit theories that actually determine their behaviour) – and that there was often a significant gap between them. They explained this in terms of their learning habits. Not only were their theories in use habitual, but they also determined the way they interpreted their environment. They looked for evidence that accorded with their expectations, but failed to attend to other kinds of evidence. Thus, their learning was limited by this narrow focus, and they only adjusted their practice within a 'single-loop' framework that left their basic assumptions unscathed. Eventually, the gap between their discourse and their actions became so great that it could no longer be sustained. The solution, according to Argyris & Schon, was to engage in double-loop learning in which their whole framework of assumptions was challenged. By collecting and discussing a much wider range of evidence, and abandoning those theories in use that were obviously dysfunctional, they could transform or reframe their problems to enable new solutions to be developed. This process incorporated a great deal of reflection, with a focus that was both deeper and broader than they had previously attempted. There is also an important accountability dimension to this argument. Both moral and professional accountability require that a person, or group of persons, is responsible for the outcomes of their actions, but this raises problems if only expected outcomes are investigated and unexpected outcomes escape notice. Another problem concerns practitioners' ability to explain their actions in situations where tacit knowledge is involved, where I suggest that the important duty is to be aware of the outcomes of one's actions in a manner that brings them under one's critical control. This involves collecting evidence of a sufficiently wide range of outcomes and reflecting critically upon that evidence, without necessarily having to explain tacit knowledge that is functioning well. However, if that knowledge is not effective, the situation has to be reviewed and tacit knowledge subjected to scrutiny. Given my aversion to dichotomies, I have now reframed the double-loop theory to focus on what is and what is not included in the reflections of a person or group. Rather than talk about single- and double-loop reflection, I prefer to recognize that in complex situations, one cannot possibly problematize everything that is taken for granted, at least not all at the same time. A choice has to be made about which assumptions to problematize first, preferably on the basis of a wider range of evidence than previously used. What Argyris & Schon's research does is to indicate the importance of challenging assumptions during reflections intended to be more critical and more penetrating. There are many ways to approach an escape from single-loop thinking, according to which assumptions you challenge and which you allow to remain undisturbed, at least for the time being. Hence, it is important when studying reflective and discursive processes in a work group or organisation to focus on which assumptions are never challenged. The advocates of what they call 'critical reflection' (Mezirow et al. 1990) go even wider than this, arguing that possible actions in a workplace are limited by the organization in which it is situated, and that the organization is itself situated not just in a market or public service but in a society in which powerful forces – political, economic and media-related – limit the possibilities for action. They argue that both individual political action and organizational actions are constrained, not only by these power relations but also by people's lack of awareness of those relations and the ways in which they work. This lack of awareness can only be addressed, they would argue, by a process of critical reflection. Thereafter, they can prepare to discuss those issues that are important for professionals and their employers, and to engage with organizational policies, the general public and the wider political process. References Argyris C. & Schon D.A. (1974) Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness. Jossey Bass, San Francisco. Google Scholar Eraut M. (1995) Schon shock: a case for reframing reflection-in-action. Teachers and Teaching 1, 9– 22. CrossrefGoogle Scholar Kolb D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Google Scholar Mezirow J. et al. (1990) Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to Transformative and Emancipatory Learning. Jossey Bass, San Francisco. Google Scholar Schon D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books, New York. Google Scholar Schon D.A. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Jossey Bass, San Francisco. Web of Science®Google Scholar Citing Literature Volume3, Issue2June 2004Pages 47-52 ReferencesRelatedInformation