Smoke and Mirrors? Evaluating the Use of Reflective Practice As a Management Learning Technique
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LTA Assignment
Hilary Duckett
Smoke and mirrors? Evaluating the use of reflective practice as a
management learning technique.
This is one of a set of papers and work in progress written by research postgraduates (MPhil and PhD) at Lancaster University's Department of Educational Research. The papers are primarily offered as examples of work that others at similar stages of their research careers can refer to and engage with.
Abstract
This paper explores the value of reflective practice on a professional management programme in the School of Business at a new university. The purpose is to gain a fuller understanding of the perceptions of staff and students about the teaching and learning experience. Theoretical perspectives that define reflective practice and evaluate its uses and abuses are critiqued and used as the basis from which to explore the purpose and value of reflective practice on a management programme. Two forms of primary material were collected and transcribed: structured interviews with a sample of
Certificate in Management students; and a meeting between tutors on the CM programme. The paper compares theoretical constructs of reflective practice with staff and student perceptions about it. The paper concludes that staff and students shared an understanding of the reflective practice process and a commitment to experiential learning and attributed a value to the process as a vehicle for connecting theory to practice and internalising learning. However, little evidence was found to support the use 1 of reflective practice as a tool for critically exploring or improving practice. In addition a number of limitations were surfaced, in particular a tendency for students to perceive the exercise as primarily an assessment device which consequently affected the content and style of writing and a general lack of confidence in the grading process.
Introduction
The concept of reflective practice has a long tradition in learning theory grounded in the work of Piaget (1932 ) , Dewey (1933), Lewin (1951), Schon ( 1983) and Kolb (1984).
Piaget’s work established a link between intelligence and experience suggesting that an individual’s age effects their capacity to reason: as that individual gains more experience their ability and capacity to reason develops thus demonstrating the importance of experience to the learning process. Dewey’s work emphasised the centrality of personal experience to individual development and learning and his work strongly influenced the adaptation of reflective practice into professional fields such as teaching and social work.
Lewin and Kolb developed alternative models of learning that illustrated the connections between experiencing, reflecting, conceptualising and experimenting and these have profoundly influenced the design of many professional programmes. Schon’s work offered an alternative to propositional or scientific constructions of knowledge which had traditionally been associated with the professions and he termed this reflection-in-action or knowing -in- action - a process whereby the professional by virtue of his/her action is engaged in the use and development of a tacit understanding of practice. Schon’s work added an intellectual or philosophical gravitas to the concept of reflective practice,
2 afforded it a broader acceptance in higher education and won the accolade of ‘the most quoted book on professional expertise during the last ten years’ Eraut (1995:p9). It is, however, the cumulative work of these theorists which has led to the development of reflective practice as a technique designed to ‘bridge the gap between academic theory and professional practice’ (Johnston,1995:p75).
The broad aim of this paper is to explore the role of reflective practice on a professional management course at a new university and to explore its utility as a learning technique.
The specific aims are as follows: to define the term reflective practice and to investigate whether an understanding about what this means is shared by staff and students; to explore students’ orientations to reflection; to investigate whether the theoretical objectives for undertaking reflective practice are shared by staff and students; and to explore the theoretical barriers to reflection and to interrogate these in relation to the case study.
Research Methodology
The research methodology is grounded in phenomenology with an emphasis placed upon the ‘importance of subjective meanings or subjective interpretations of that experience in our understanding’ (Pring, 2000:p98). The intention was to explore issues raised by staff and students and to develop a picture of their feelings and attitudes towards reflective practice and to construct meaning from these different perspectives on the premise that
3 ‘reality is socially constructed rather than objectively determined’ (Easterby-Smith et al,
1991:p24).
Participant observation was used to gather material - the researcher was a member of a team of academics that met to discuss the role and value of reflective practice within the
School of Business’ management programmes. The meeting comprised six members of staff – three course managers, two members of senior management and a member of staff with specific responsibility for reflective practice and mentoring. The researcher (as a course manager) attended the meeting and secured permission from the participants to record and transcribe the proceedings for the purpose of publication. The collection of material through participant observation is consistent with the phenomenology as it provides access to the complexities of human responses in a diverse working environment and recognises the interplay between the perceptions of participants and the interaction with the researcher. Whilst it is accepted that this connection between research subjects and the researcher is problematic as views may be influenced or biased by the relationship this relationship is nevertheless grounded in the phenomenological paradigm which is based upon inter-relationships and is focused upon drawing meaning from these interactions. As the researcher is employed by the institution from which the research subjects were drawn neutrality and independence could not be achieved.
However, this familiarity with the institutional structures and cultures enabled a greater level of access to material and facilitated more in-depth questioning and discussion thereby generating a richer source of research material.
4 Further material was collected through structured one-to-one interviews with students currently undertaking the Certificate in Management programme. The students were selected on the basis of judgements made about their learning styles. This judgement was derived from a review of Personal Development Summaries which the cohort had completed as a formative exercise - students were broadly classified as surface or deep in orientation. Four students from each grouping were invited to the interview. Two students later withdrew from the process due to work pressure and therefore the sample consisted of 4 students that had exhibited deep learning strategies and two from the surface orientation. The objective of this sampling process had been to ensure that both deep and surface strategies were represented in the discussions about experiences of reflection - the objective was not to critique deep/surface strategies in relation to reflective practice (although this might form the basis of a further study ). Given that the sample comprised a mix of learning orientations it was considered representative of the total cohort.
The confidentiality and anonymity of participants was achieved by coding the data such that identities could not be deduced from the analysis. All the data was transcribed and coded as follows; definitions, orientations, objectives and barriers. In selecting quotations from participants the objective was to illustrate ways in which views were convergent or divergent with the literature surrounding reflective practice. Selective quotations were used to illustrate the degree of fit with theoretical perspectives on reflective practice. The purpose was not to seek to generalise to a wider population outside the study but to use the perceptions of participants in the process to critique the
5 literature and to raise questions about the application of reflective practice within a management programme. To achieve this the data was analysed within a theoretical framework of pedagogic literature – in particular reflective practice and experiential learning.
Theoretical Perspectives
Defining Reflective Practice
‘ The discourse of experiential learning is …. a body of knowledge about learning from experience based on constituting experience as a form of knowledge. The everyday process of learning from experience becomes ‘experiential learning’, a ‘theory’ and
‘systematic practice’. ‘ Usher (1993:p169)
The expression reflective practice has begun to dominate the discourse of professional education and from its early developments in the fields of social work and teacher training the principles are now well established across a wide range of vocational programmes. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the process of reflecting as mediating on or thinking about and reflective as given to thoughtfulness (1990: p1008) and thus in connection to learning an emphasis is placed upon critical thinking. Hunt describes the character of reflective practice as: ‘ a process, incorporating a range of different techniques, through which one can acquire a deeper understanding of oneself and one’s interconnections with others and one’s working environment’ (1998:p326).
6 The techniques to which Hunt refers include an array of methods such as role plays, field work, placements, and learning diaries/logs or journals.
The premise which underpins the concept of reflective practice is that learning and experience cannot be conceived of separately: they are connected parts of the same educational process : ‘ there is an intimate and necessary relation between the processes of actual experience and education’ (Dewey,1938: pp19-20). For Dewey personal experience and the ability to reflect upon it are critical to professional learning and development and experiential learning is, in a sense, juxtaposed to more traditionally conceived constructs of knowledge and learning. Kolb developed Dewey’s work into a
Learning Cycle clearly depicting the connections between experiencing, reflecting,
(abstract) conceptualising and acting : ‘ to learn is not the special province of a single specialised realm of human functioning such as cognition or perception. It involves the integrated functioning of the total organism – thinking, feeling, perceiving and behaving’
(1984:p31)
Fundamental to the concept of reflective practice is the need to have experiences and these are defined by Boud et al as incorporating: ‘judgement, thought and connectedness with other experience – it is not isolated sensing. Even in its most elementary form, it involves perception and it implies consciousness.’ (1993:p6) Thus experience is not conceived of as simply being but as a state of consciousness in which the experiencer perceives an event and evaluates its implications in relation to prior knowledge and past
7 experiences - it is not: ‘simply an event which happens it is an event with meaning’
(Boud et al,1993:p6).
Critical reflective practice (Hunt 1998) is about recognizing assumptions that are made about professional practice and about the professional being aware of the context in which they operate. It involves criticising personal actions and professional contexts :‘ a willingness (for learners) to subject their taken for granteds and their own activities to serious scrutiny’ (Johnston and Bradley, 1996:p10). Reflective practitioners would assert that learning is not fixed it is fluid ‘all learning is relearning’ through experience
(Kolb,1984:p28).
It is the importance of this connection with the learner’s personal history – prior knowledge and past experience - which underpins reflective practice and differentiates it from those learning techniques which emphasise the acquisition of new knowledge and/or experience. As Johnston suggests ‘ reflection by definition looks backwards. It not only focuses backwards but does so with a subjective perception of times past.’
(1995:p78). She acknowledges that the outcomes derived from reflective practice are inevitably affected by the context within which the learner operates and Boud et al refer to this as the ‘learner’s personal and cultural history’. (1993:p11)
Reflective practice places a value on personal experience which proponents suggest was hitherto given less priority within more traditional educational methods such as cognitive, conceptual and behavioural :’the modern discovery of inner experience, of a realm of
8 purely personal events that are always at the individual’s command and that are his exclusively .. for refuge, consolidation and thrill, is also a great and liberating discovery.’
Dewey (1958:p1) To some extent contemporary developments in the national framework of education in the UK such Life-Long Learning, Continuous Professional Development and Vocational Learning indicate that the importance of personal and professional experience to the learning process has been recognised.
The reflective practice literature does contain an inherent contradiction as despite its backward focus it is a technique which is ostensibly designed to secure improvement and to transform practice: ‘’Reflection’ as a term is …misleading. A reflection in a mirror is an exact replica of what is in front of it. Reflection in professional practice, however, gives back not what is, but what might be, an improvement on the original’ Biggs
(2000:p6). Thus the objective for the learner is to critically reflect on their skills and knowledge and to conceptualise professional practice in different ways.
Reflective Orientations
Research suggests that reflection is not a uniform process, learners approach it in different ways and Wellington and Austin (1996) propose five reflective orientations: immediate characterized by simple description; technical reviewing practice in order to improve efficiency; deliberative attempting to ascribe personal meaning to learning; dialectic a politically active approach which rejects barriers and constraints imposed on reflection and learning; and transpersonal an inner-focused approach aimed at using
9 reflection for self development. They suggest that reflective practice is an individualised process and its application cannot be generalised as it is dependent on a range of personal and structural and contextual factors. The primary research presented within this study supports this proposition.
The Contribution of Reflective Practice
Atkins suggests that reflective practice is fundamental to the development of a professional: ‘current models of novice-expert development suggest that without a considered evaluation of performance it is difficult to move from experience to expertise’
(1995:p3). She sees it as a ‘desirable outcome’ of vocational training and indeed the technique is featured extensively on professional development programmes in fields as diverse as nursing and accountancy. The belief in experiential learning as integral to vocational learning stems from Dewey’s research and his assertion that learning and experience are parts of the same developmental process.
A further contribution of reflective practice is that through inclusion and accreditation within programmes in higher education it has given an academic value to professional action and repositioned professional experience as knowledge: ‘The knowledge is .. inherent in the action: it is based, in part, on the past experiences of the practitioner interacting with the particular situation’ (Richardson,1990:p11). To some extent the accreditation of experience may encourage professionals to engage more actively in events or situations at work which present new learning opportunities thereby creating a
10 virtuous circle of learning through action: ‘ learning is best facilitated in an environment where there is a dialectic tension and conflict between immediate concrete experience and analytic detachment’ (Kolb,1984 :p9). His Learning Cycle presents a model whereby learners engage in abstract conceptualisation as a consequence of experiences – this in turn results in action planning and development. It is this connection between professional action and theoretical conceptualisation that according to Kolb’s theory enables transformation and development.
Reflective practice is not conceived of as merely a mechanistic method for securing continuous improvement - proponents maintain that it is also a cognitive and behavioural process which has a pedagogic function within the curricula: ‘(it) is concerned with intellectual growth; it requires practitioners to stand outside, examine critically, make sense of , and so develop the waggon load of experience and knowledge they travel with’
(Hunt,1998:p30). She suggests that because reflective practice engages the learner in a dialogue with peers it makes them consciously aware of the interconnectedness of professional practice and develops interpersonal awareness. Boud et al (1993) suggest that reflection as a process causes dissonance impacting positively on learning as the practitioner is encouraged to explore aspects of their action and practice which might otherwise be avoided because of psychological or behavioural discomfort. This active process of critical self and contextual appraisal is for them an important characteristic of the reflective cycle.
11 Reflective practice is not derived from a technical or rationalistic pedagogy: ‘(it) differentiates experimental learning theory from rationalist and other cognitive theories of learning that tend to give primary emphasis to acquisition, manipulation and recall of abstract symbols and from behavioral theories that deny any role for consciousness and subjective experience in the learning process’ (Kolb, 1984:p20). The lack of emphasis placed on memorisation and replication in favour of more personalised (even subjective) interpretation is a position which often places reflective practice in conflict with traditional methods of teaching and assessing in higher education - this tension is explored in the next section.
O’Rourke (1998) suggests that reflective techniques such as the journal also contribute to pedagogy by integrating what otherwise might be fragmented programmes of study - providing connections and mapping the territory of the academic curricula for the adult learner. Indeed proponents maintain that experiential learning is especially important for the adult learner as their ‘interests are embedded in their personal histories, in their visions of who they are in the world and in what they can do now and want to do’
(Weatherby, 1978:p19) As a technique it can also be useful in preparing adult learners for engaging in the discourse of higher education. O’Rourke suggests that : ‘the learning journal is a powerful tool for developing student confidence and cognitive ability in ways which embed and extend learning’ (1998: p403) and it can facilitate a deeper understanding of the student’s personal learning style.
12 Reflective Barriers
Reflective practice is a time consuming and psychologically challenging exercise for staff and students alike and for this reason its role is often marginalised or deprioritised within programmes of study. Other critics suggest that reflection is a gimmick or fad ‘more concerned with technique and process than content and substance’ (Kolb, 1984:p3).
However, if the premise that there is no learning without experience is accepted then reflective practice is integral to development. This section explores the limitations of the concept and begins with an exploration of learner-specific factors.
Boud and Walker (1993:p79) developed the following list of barriers which may cause students to disengage from reflective practice: unrealistic expectations about what the process would achieve; threats to the learner’s psychological or behavioural status; a lack of self awareness; insufficient time or inadequate preparation; external demands/pressure; inadequate support; ineffective observational skills; entrenched patterns of thinking/behaving; inherent distrust of the concept of reflective practice; engrained assumptions about what constitutes learning; a lack of confidence or self esteem; and a fear of failure. This summary provides a useful basis from which to explore the primary material in this study. However, the student perspective is only one part of the learning process and this section explores some of the broader themes surrounding the barriers to reflective practice.
13 Eraut highlighted time pressure as a fundamental barrier to effective reflection: “little analysis is possible without deliberation and deliberation takes time, more time than most professionals can make available in quantity’ (1995:p20). He also proposed that once the academic structure was removed and the assessment incentives lifted professionals would have a propensity to disengage from the reflective process thus to an extent the concept of the reflective practitioner was illusory.
Other writers highlight the assessment of reflection as a barrier to its implementation: whilst Knight suggests that ‘what we choose to assess and how shows quite starkly what we value’ (1995:p13) the assessment of the process has been shown to change the learning dynamic. Rather than engaging in a self-critical exploration of behaviours and actions the student operating strategically within a familiar setting of grades and credits may be tempted to please the teacher: ‘there is an issue of authenticity: are students saying what they think, or what they think we want to hear?’ (O’ Rourke, 1998:p410).
Tutors may themselves have developed ‘entrenched attitudes which support traditional methods of teaching and assessment (that are) hard to change’ (Entwistle,1996: p111-
112). Awarding marks to a piece of reflective writing which may be highly personalised and non-traditional in expression is a qualitatively different experience for tutors than assessing more familiar instruments such as essays or reports. In her research into the assessment of reflective material Hunt (1998) found that because students had responded in diverse ways to the exercise moderation had proven problematic : ‘How should we assess the relative merits, of say, a final submission which was well-written and well- referenced – but which contained only superficial personal reflection ……….against one
14 where we knew a student had undergone a great struggle in order to articulate and reflect.. but where cross-referencing to theory was minimal or non-existent ?’ (1998: p28). This uncertainty about the assessment criteria may result in tutors being unwilling to grade or mark reflective pieces.
Some researchers suggest that problems encountered with reflective practice have more to do with the design of the process and its place within the curriculum than with assessment systems per se. The pedagogy may simply be ill-conceived : ‘there are now many examples of poor educational practice being implemented under the guise and rhetoric of reflection’ (Boud and Walker, 1998:p192). They highlight several design problems with reflective practice in higher education: simple recipe following whereby tutors perceive the learning as a checklist; lack of structure/guidance given to learners; overlooking normed patterns of behaviour in which students are conditioned to demonstrate what they know not what they do not know; and inappropriate disclosure whereby the learner may reveal more personal angst than the tutor is able to handle.
Harris suggests that overly prescribed approaches to reflection are commonplace and problematic: ‘ a teacher may introduce learning contracts but then use them in a highly prescriptive way in terms of controlling the objectives, any negotiation and the assessment process’ (1995:p154). She suggests that such a controlled approach mitigates against the student’s independence of thought and self-reliance in action, which the process aims to foster.
15 A further issue relates to the need to recognise that simply introducing reflective practice to a programme does not necessarily guarantee learning: ‘ while experience may be the foundation of learning it does not necessarily lead to it: there needs to be active engagement with it’ (Boud et al, 1993:p9) and they emphasise the importance of the student as an agent - responsible for constructing their own learning. Often the process of reflection is over-simplified in the minds of curricula planners whereas in reality it is:
‘infinitely more chaotic’ (Hunt, 1998:p28) than models of learning suggest. The learner as an agent constructs meaning from experience within a subjective and personal domain:
‘ it is more comfortable to see the familiar … than to boggle the mind by considering what may be outside and ready to threaten mental maps that have often been carefully constructed over many years of pain-avoidance.’ (Hunt,1998:p329). Thus the learner’s propensity towards self-delusion may diminish the value of the process. Johnston suggests that centring the learner and his/her experience is itself problematic - it can lead to a pre-occupation with the self ‘an inner focus, a reactive, phenomenological and actor centred pre-occupation that can border on self-absorption’ (1995:p80). At a theoretical level Johnston suggests that such self-absorption may cause the learner to ignore issues of macro-structure such as political, social and economic forces which impact and constrict individual action.
In conclusion the literature has highlighted that reflective practice is derived from a broad base of pedagogic research (Piaget, Dewey, Lewin, Kolb Schon). Theorists suggest that it has conceptual value (promoting a deeper understanding of practice) and also practical application (connecting theory with practice and improving practice). Wellington and
16 Austin’s (1996) reflective orientations suggest that the process of reflection is complex and not easily generalisable – it can take many forms. Some theorists suggest that the process may encounter problems in its translation from a theoretical construct to a practical pedagogic tool. Barriers to reflection include a lack of commitment to or belief in the process and other practical constraints such as time or external pressure. The theoretical framework presented in this section will be tested by analysing the primary research material in the proceeding sections.
Research Findings
The research is based on the use of reflective practice on a Certificate of Management programme in a business school at a new university. The reflective process used in this case is common to all the professional programmes within the school and thus the results of this study have a strategic implication. The process reviewed two instruments which are used to encourage reflection - a Learning Contract and a Personal Development
Summary (PDS). The Learning Contract requires students to identify broad learning objectives upon commencement of the programme and to review the extent to which these have been achieved at the end in the form of a Reflective Essay. The PDS’ are reflections on the relevance of specific modules to students’ work experience.
The primary research aims to explore the meaning of reflective practice in a practical context and to analyse whether staff and student hold shared understandings about how it is defined and a shared perception about the process of reflecting. It also investigates
17 how the objectives pursued by students compare to those designed by staff. The primary research explores whether there is any practical evidence for the theoretical limitations of reflective practice commonly cited by researchers. Finally the paper responds to the findings raised by the primary research and the theoretical critique.
Staff and Student Definitions
An analysis of the interview and staff meeting material suggested a high degree of congruence between staff and students’ understanding of the concept of reflection. There was evidence that staff and students considered it to be a process which critiqued and reviewed practice and experience from a theoretical perspective – the importance of this theory-practice relationship is also emphasised within the reflective practice literature.
The following quotes illustrates the way in which one member of staff explained the connection between theory and practice through reflective practice to students:
‘I try to bed it in saying you know in the old days you come to university and you get management theory and its completely up to you in terms of application and we’re kind of offering something a bit more we’re offering help in the workplace to transfer the process we’re trying to help you make the link’ (staff-2:p8)
In describing the benefits of the reflective process one student suggested it was constructive in:
18 ‘making me think about what I’ve learnt from the course and then putting it into practice’ (student 1:p29)
Equally staff and students had a shared understanding of the principles of the Learning
Cycle (Kolb 1984, Lewin 1951) and recognised the importance of experiential learning to professional practice:
‘ it means reflecting on what you’ve done – this whole learning by experience cycle ….. which to me makes a lot of sense’ (student 2:p36).
‘we’re trying to get the students to use the learning cycle and that has been a learning philosophy that we had and actually two or three years ago ….we wanted students to reflect and become reflective practitioners’ (staff 4:p1)
Hunt’s (1998) definition of reflection as being concerned with challenging and recognizing implicit work-based assumptions and the contextual limitations of practice was identified by one of the students:
‘ it (RP) made me think more broadly about things rather than in a blinkered way - I think of my company and the blinkers are off now not just insular within one area’
(student 6:p75)
19 However, this appreciation of reflection-in-action as a critical process of engagement with theory was not widely in evidence in the primary material - this may be indicative of a failure on the part of students/staff to utilize the technique effectively or may be a response to other structural or interpersonal effects. The reasons for this lack of critical enagagement are explored in later sections.
From the interview transcripts there was evidence that two of the students concurred with the suggestion by Biggs (2000) that reflection was concerned with practice-based improvement. One student indicated that she had found the process:
‘more personally useful rather than from an academic point of view realising what I’d learnt in terms of my development needs’ (student 1:p32)
Another student indicated that he was engaging in reflective practice from the perspective of personal development:
‘for me its what I’m going to get out of it personally and how I can relate that back to the job I currently do or what I hope to do in the future’ (student 2:p36)
There was also evidence that work sponsors perceived the reflective process as being useful from the perspective of personal and organisational learning and this is considered in the proceeding section. However, the view that the reflective process was concerned with improvement was not widely expressed by staff or students. Thus staff and students
20 shared a broad theoretical understanding of some of the characteristics of the reflective process such as the interconnection between theory and practice and the concept of experiential learning. However, there was no evidence in the case to suggest that staff or students perceived reflection to be a critical or developmental technique.
21 The Purpose of Reflective Practice
Staff and students perceived the purpose of reflection to be: a technique for clarifying
learning objectives; a mechanism by which the relevance and value of the
programme to practice could be demonstrated; a strategy to encourage the
internalisation of learning; a potential source of information for curriculum
planning; and an expedient method of assuring the assessment of learning
outcomes for QAA purposes. The extent of the fit between the theoretical
objectives of reflection and those evidenced in this case are discussed below.
The completion of the Learning Contracts ensured that students were able to establish
meaningful learning objectives upon commencement of the programme. Students
suggested that it helped to familiarise them with the course/module learning
outcomes and stimulated their motivation to study. The process ensured that at an
early stage students were engaging with theory and concepts and considering their
relevance to their work situation and context. Thus the process was perceived as
a way of facilitating the connection between theory and practice and an aid to the
effective induction of students:
‘for me … I guess its clarification of my reasons for joining the course and what I expected to gain personally from the outcome and slanted towards the work environment particularly’ (student 3:p44).
22 Students suggested that engaging in reflection had wider effects than is presupposed by research in the field. Firstly, because it encouraged students to consider how the programme was relevant to their professional practice they used it as a basis for justifying expenditure on course fees:
‘I think it was a back up for her (work-based mentor) to think I would learn something useful for the organisation’ (student 4:p53).
This quotation relates to the earlier section on reflection as an improvement process.
Whilst the student does not explicitly acknowledge this connection herself she suggests that work sponsors perceive that this relationship exists and this perception was useful in ensuring fee payment.
Secondly, one of the students suggested that the process of reflection had a functional role in relation to the summative assessments:
‘ I also use these (reflective summaries) when I’m writing other assignments to make sure that maybe I need to put something from this module into another assignment so this sort of summarises what I’ve learnt on the learning outcomes’ (student 2:p38)
For this student the reflective process was helpful in integrating different aspects of the programme, however, this was not a function which was discussed widely by either staff or students.
23 Those students who described themselves as familiar with more traditional methods of assessment such as examination and short answer questioning – techniques which tend to encourage memorisation and replication – were impressed by the capacity of reflection to enable learning to be internalised. This perception supports Kolb’s (19984) assertion that the technique presents an alternative pedagogy to more traditional teaching and learning orthodoxy. It was suggested that as a study strategy the process was useful in revising and reviewing learning:
‘ if you don’t reflect upon it you can forget about it and you lose that knowledge – well I would lose that knowledge’ (student 2:p40).
Staff and students considered that the reflective outputs presented a rich data source for curricula planning and a mechanism by which programmes might be tailored to the learning needs of students:
‘it allows you (the staff) to bring you comments and aims of students to tailor it in some way make sure its relevant to a business environment’ (student 3:p44)
Whilst accepting that in principle reflections might be used in this way the reality of time pressure was seen as a limitation in this respect:
24 ‘Now you could argue that it would help them (module leaders) with the module development because you know clearly if you find huge gaps with everybody on cost benefit analysis then you can spend more of your time maybe on that it maybe too late by then because you’ve already set your programme’ (staff 4:p11).
The conviction that reflective practice is important as it gives a value to professional experience (Dewey 1958, Richardson 1990) was not widely discussed by staff or students during data collection. However, staff acknowledged that the technique had been expedient in assessing and awarding academic credit to the transferable skills components – consequently the process had enabled Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) requirements to be met:
‘the reflection process became a way of showing the QAA that we were assessing all the learning outcomes …. we haven’t got explicit skills modules so we’ve got to assess it in some way and that’s always been an anxiety of mine’ (staff 1:p1).
Thus to some extent staff viewed the reflective process as an expedient mechanism for satisfying external quality auditors that all the programme’s objectives had been formally assessed. This tension between reflection as a tool for development or as part of the formal assessment system is problematic and is discussed in further sections.
Theoretical objectives for engaging in reflective practice which were not directly referred to by staff or students included: transforming or changing practice; and confronting
25 personal or behavioural problems at work. The value of the technique as a device by which the course content might be integrated was cited by only one of the students and in general staff and students suggested contra-indications.
Therefore, whilst many of the theoretical objectives cited for including reflective practice are evidenced in the case others were not. The reasons for these omissions may be due to the design of the reflective practice technique used in the case or it may be that certain of the claims made for reflection are made in principle rather than realised in practice. A more detailed longitudinal study would be necessary to fully explain the reasons.
Reflective Orientations
Of Wellington and Austin’s (1996) five orientations to reflection three were in evidence in the case. The immediate orientation with its tendency to describe events or situations rather than to engage in analysis was cited by staff as a potential outcome of the process.
The following extract by a staff member describes how research into the learning strategies adopted by students in completing reflective summaries demonstrated a propensity towards immediacy:
‘ all they seemed to be doing was describing what the module outcomes were and what they did in them that was at least half the group that did that … only one of them I marked out of 25 actually engaged in any critical evaluation of theory’ (staff 5:p2).
26 This observation was supported by other staff members suggesting that staff perceived the immediate orientation to be a common student response. However, during the student interviews most articulated a tendency towards technical efficiency - frequent references were made to the need to secure acceptable grades and/or to use their reflections to structure and improve formal assignments. In answer to the question what were you trying to achieve through the reflective process ? the following quotations summarise the general response:
‘I really, I just wanted to make sure that I got a competent grade on it’ (student 1:p32)
‘ I was trying to pass the module as far as I’m concerned’ (student 5:p64)
One of the student responses indicated that she may have adopted a transpersonal orientation because whilst concluding that reflection had not developed her as a person she suggested that:
‘its developed me in terms of getting to grips with the academic theory and practice’
(student 6:p77).
With reference to Wellington and Austin’s (1996) theory there does appear to be a perceptual difference about the orientations to reflection with staff suggesting a propensity towards immediacy whereas students described a general tendency towards
27 technical efficiency. The reasons for the exhibition of technical or immediate orienatations are explored more fully in the next section.
The Problems of Reflection in Context
The following barriers drawn from Boud and Walker’s (1993) checklist were in evidence in the case: staff had unrealistic expectations about what the process would achieve; time pressure was frequently cited by students as a constraint; students and staff had developed entrenched expectations about learning and assessing which did not translate easily to reflective practice; evidence that some of the students distrusted the process per se; and a fear of failing the assessed component tended to drive the content of the reflective summaries.
The primary data showed that reflective practice was intended by staff to: engage students in identifying personal learning outcomes; develop practitioner skills and behaviours; encourage independence and self-reliance; and satisfy QAA assessment regulations. There was, however, an acknowledgment by staff that the actual outcomes derived from the process perhaps differed from these expectations:
‘given the tension between writing assignments and doing the reflective thing the assignments come first and having to sit there reflecting at home after a hard day at work and to keep a journal up is not something they choose to do’ (staff 1:p22).
28 Eraut (1995) reiterated Boud and Walker’s assertion (1993) that insufficient time presented a key constraint and the primary research suggested that students and staff were aware of this. As a consequence of time pressure students described feeling rushed and frustrated by their inability to enact their development plans. In view of the shared acceptance of the time constraints the objectives articulated by staff were perhaps optimistic.
The fear of failure cited by Boud and Walker became apparent as students described their perceptions of the process as summative assessment. Staff and students agreed that an assessed element was important because it encouraged participation in the process:
‘ the difficulty is that if we don’t ask them to hand it in …. they will not reflect if they can get away with it because it’s a drag … it a bit like medicine you take it because its good for you (laughs).’ (staff 4:p10)
However, a number of problems relating to the assessment process were surfaced in the data and these related to: a lack of understanding about the assessment criteria; the inability to authenticate the evidence presented; and the tendency of formal assessment of the process to affect the style and content of students responses. One member of staff indicated that the grading classification of competent/not yet competent used within the process was itself problematic:
29 ‘I’d be very concerned to say to someone you’re not yet competent in this area without having the opportunity to observe them in practice … I think the actual process of assessment is invalidated’ (staff 5:p3).
In addition the assessment criteria did not seem to be commonly understood as another staff member was unsure whether it was specific behaviours or the student’s ability to reflect that was at issue:
‘ but is that what we are saying is competent or not yet competent ? I mean my approach to it is if they’ve not engaged in that process of reflection then they’re not yet competent’
(staff 6:p4)
Neither was there a commonly agreed rationale for assessment - one member of staff suggested that the process was assessed ostensibly because of QAA regulations:
‘ the reason it was put in as assessed urm was this device to try and satisfy the QAA that we’re assessing all the learning outcomes’ (staff 2:p4).
The lack of clarity between staff was replicated in comments made by the students – they questioned the consistency of marking and methods by which grades were formulated. It was suggested that the authenticity of the work could not be tested as the following extract drawn from a one-to-one interview with a student illustrates (p47):
30 Student 3 – ‘I’m not sure how you would analyse all this feedback actually’
Interviewer– ‘and what makes you confused about that then ?’
Student 3 – ‘what … how would you analyse this ?’
Interviewer – ‘yes’
Student 3 – ‘because it must be so wide ranging and varied unless I haven’t developed my understanding of questionnaires and surveys sufficiently in order to understand how you might do that’ (laughs)
Interviewer – ‘so you feel that the responses are going to be wide ranging what about the accuracy of the data do you think that’s something we can assess ?’
Student 3 – ‘no I think we can bull-shit like the best of them I don’t see how you would tell if someone is doing that’
This extract was indicative of a range of student responses, which challenged the validity of the assessment process indeed students indicated that the qualitative feedback received was superfluous to them if a competent grade was awarded. This further illustrates a tendency towards technical efficiency with a perception that the process was something which must be passed in order to progress. Rather than engage in self evaluation students
31 grade consciousness encouraged them to satisfy staff requirements and to please the teacher as this extract between the interviewer and a student illustrates (p61):
Interviewer – ‘so in terms of who you were writing for , who were you writing for ?’
Student 5 – ‘oh the tutors’ (laughs).
Staff were equally aware of game-playing and scripted responses and a tendency for the students to perceive the process as a mechanistic staff requirement:
‘where we’ve got it now is form filling they almost feel obliged to put something in every box’ (staff 2:p2).
There was evidence to suggest that this teacher-centred interpretation of the process had impacted on the students’ written style and content:
‘I felt they had to be written in a certain way and highlight certain areas which are maybe … perhaps if they weren’t marked I might have said something different … I was always conscious that they were marked’ (student 1:p33).
The student’s perception was that she was expected to write constructively and positively
– the assessment of the process had conditioned her learning response. Other students likened the process to a school report or a performance review. In preparing their
32 reflective statements students had assumed normed class-room behaviour – perceiving it to be a continuation of summative assessments and the award of a pass grade possible through careful selecting of the content. This please the teacher response detracted from the use of reflection as a critical and self exploratory method. There was a general perception amongst the students that the reflective process had other motives – it was not simply a mechanism to encourage active engagement with the learning cycle it was designed to test learning and understanding. Thus the formal assessment of the process had problematised its enactment within the programme – staff and students had become entrenched in prescribed ways of teaching and learning which resulted in formal assessment processes and question-spotting learner responses.
The formal structure imposed on the reflective process was also considered problematic.
The Learning Contract and Personal Development Summaries were completed on standardised froms which required students to reflect against prescribed learning outcomes 1. Students and staff agreed that whilst there was a need to provide structure there was a recognised tension between guiding and prescribing:
‘the other problem with it of course is that students don’t attribute learning to each module in the way that we’ve got it set up…. It doesn’t work like that’ (staff 1:p4)
Students concurred that the part of the reflective process requiring them to link their learning to discrete module outcomes was restrictive and unhelpful:
1 These learning outcomes had been drawn directly from course validation documents in language not easily accessible to students 33 ‘ I don’t think that’s as relevant as the rest of it .. because it tells you what you’re going to learn .. if that sort of thing doesn’t affect my organisation or my current role then there’s not an awful lot I can write’ (student 2:p37)
‘you (the staff) also seem to be saying that these learning outcomes are putting things into boxes which aren’t necessarily true in your (the student’s) experience’ (student
5:p62).
The difficulty of ensuring an appropriate balance between structure and flexibility was thus problematic. The reflective process had been designed in a systematic and prescribed way which conveyed to students (and staff) the impression that learning was a checklist to be listed by students and checked off by staff. This structural tension is a recognised phenomenon in the literature on reflective practice. By prescribing the learning outcomes staff are ignoring the importance of the students’ agency (Hunt 1998) and the outcome of learning through reflection is not expressed as a checklist and cannot be guaranteed. Using Boud and Walker’s (1998) categories of design failure the programme designers may be guilty of recipe following whereby over-prescription of the learning outcomes encouraged description rather than critical evaluation.
From the student responses there was some evidence of: detachment from the reflective process and a distrust of the objectives of the technique:
34 Interviewer – ‘do you feel that the Learning Contract has been useful to your personal development or do you feel it's been useful to your development at work ?’
Student 4 – ‘no not particularly I haven’t looked at it since I filled it in at the beginning of the year…. The actual Learning Contract physical thing hasn’t particularly helped me as yet.’
Thus engagement in a continuous cycle of action and reflection was not the reality for this student. Another student expressed an inherent distrust of reflective practice as a process and considered it an invasive intrusion into an inherently personal activity:
‘ what I really hate is having to express that kind of thinking … what goes on in my head is personal stuff and I hate that .. I can’t stand it it’s really intrusive’ (student 5:p60-61)
An unwillingness to disclose personal feelings and thoughts may have been instrumental in encouraging an immediate or technical efficiency orientation to reflection and a tendency to focus on the criteria for passing. Such learner resistance also mitigates against the use of the process as a tool for critical self exploration.
Finally there was evidence from the primary research that Kolb’s (1984) anxiety that reflection may be perceived as a fad or gimmick had some foundation. Staff and students acknowledged that its inclusion was in part a response to an academic fashion:
35 ‘we are well ahead of the game on this because its very much the in-thing and continuous professional development, reflective practitioner and so on’ (staff 4:p1)
‘I have no idea (what the purpose is) because its trendy they all do it these days
(laughs).’ (student 5:p63)
In order to ensure that students engage in the process there needs to be a shared belief by staff and students in its value as a pedagogic tool and its importance to professional development. The shared perception that the technique was included as a concession to fashion may impact on its role and status within the programme.
Conclusions
This investigation into the practical application of reflective practice on a professional management programme has produced a number of findings. Whilst staff and students shared an understanding of the principles of experiential learning no compelling evidence was found to support the use of reflection as a critical thinking technique or a mechanism to improve practice. This raises important questions about the design and support of the process with the School. In accordance with theoretical perspectives the technique was perceived by staff and students to be a useful tool for connecting theory with practice and an effective learning strategy for adults which encouraged the internalisation of learning rather than replication or memorisation. In addition to those objectives specified in the literature this research has shown there to be a value in reflection as a technique for:
36 inducting students into course learning objectives; justifying expenditure on course fees to employers; a potential source of information for course planning and design; and from a staff perspective an expedient mechanism for satisfying QAA regulations on assessment. These findings make a useful contribution to existing literature in the field of reflective practice. In relation to orientations to learning there was no evidence in the case to support the widespread adoption of Wellington and Austin’s (1996) critical methodologies - deliberative, dialectic or transpersonal. The evidence in this case also suggests that staff and students had differing perceptions about student reflective orientations. Whilst staff perceived that students adopted a descriptive or immediate approach, students articulated a technical-efficiency orientation focused on maximising summative gradings. Finally the research has identified a number of problematic areas in the use of reflective practice including: unrealistic staff expectations of the process; the impact of time constraints on students’ ability to engage in the process; the overly prescribed format which restricted learning; the tendency towards prescribed patterns of teaching (assessing) and learning (being assessed); a distrust by learners of the intrusiveness of the process; and a lack of credibility ascribed to the assessment process.
These limitations are significant and do support previous research conducted by Boud and Walker (1993). The findings suggest that the process of reflective practice used by the School should be reviewed - methods by which learner autonomy can be encouraged should be explored and alternative assessment strategies devised so as to encourage a more critical exploration of practice. Additional support might be offered to students to encourage deliberative, dialectic or transpersonal reflective orientations (Wellington and
Austin 1996) rather than descriptive or assessment-driven responses. However, this
37 research has shown that despite design and assessment limitations reflective practice can encourage experiential learning and does provide an important connection between theory and practice.
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