Reflection and Reflective Practices: Study Skills

Reflection is something you do every day

If you first came across reflection as part of your university course, you may think that it is a difficult or technically complex activity. In fact, it’s a natural reaction all humans have to life:

For example, you decide to make a cake. You find a recipe, buy the ingredients, mix them together and put them in the oven. The cake might be delicious – in which case you make the decision to use the recipe again in the future. Or something might have gone wrong – maybe you opened the door too early and it all collapsed? In which case you decide to set a timer next time you use the recipe so you give it long enough to cook properly.

Perhaps you have a hobby like playing an instrument or running cross-country? When you train or practice, you will use reflection to analyse what you did and how you can improve your performance. Or maybe you just forgot to take your books back to library and got a fine – now you put your library due dates into your phone’s planner app so you get an alert before your books are due back.

All of this is reflection.

Reflection can also be a skill you use on your course or in your profession

You may also need to use reflection as part of your course or within your future career.

• This may be a formal, assessed process – for example, producing a piece of reflective writing for a uni module.
• Or it could be done more informally in class, or as part of another activity: reflection and planning what you will do differently is an important part of peer feedback, for example.
• It could be that you need to learn how to reflect in particular situations because your job once you leave university will involve ongoing reflective practice as part of your professional accreditation.
• You might also be asked to reflect during a job application or interview.

Reflection is not good or bad, or designed to catch you out – it’s just a way to help you learn from things that happen to you.

Whether it’s formal or informal, written and assessed, or just a chat with your friends leading to a decision to work in a different way in the future, reflection will help you learn from your experiences, manage situations better and give you confidence moving forward.

Reflective thinking

How to be a reflective thinker

You can be a reflective thinker without the need for special theories or ways of working – as we’ve just seen, you are probably already using reflection in lots of different contexts.

However, there will be times where a detailed, structured reflective process is called for. This will certainly be the case if you are having to produce a piece of reflective writing or if you are learning how to reflect as part of your professional practice. In these situations, you may be given one of the many reflective models to use, or you may have the choice as to which model you select. Again, this can feel daunting: some of the models can have a lot of different stages to move through. At first, it can feel unusual or artificial to break down an organic, lived experience into rigid, compartmentalised segments.

You may also think that reflection is just about things that go wrong, viewing it as quite a negative process, or one that will make you feel bad about yourself. Don’t worry! Reflection is simply about learning through experience:

• Sometimes those experiences will be positive.
• Sometimes they won’t be so great.
• Often, reflection unearths a blend or spectrum of positive, negative, and mixed observations.

That's fine – it’s not about a moral judgement on you as a person.

Reflective models: the basics

Whether you are choosing a reflective model or have been assigned one to use, try not to get overwhelmed by the term itself: think of a reflective model as a tool you can use to organise your thinking and structure your discussion of any insights that thinking leads to.

Most reflective models move through the same basic stages: 1) an experience, 2) what can be learned from that experience, and 3) how that learning can be applied going forward. Other models may choose to emphasise particular aspects of the process by subdividing the three basic sections in a more nuanced way, but most will follow this sequence in some form.

Also, remember that reflection does not happen in isolation. Instead, it is cyclical – each individual reflection leading onto a fresh one as you take what you have learned and apply it in a new situation.

Making the cake: an example

Let’s take a simple example: baking that cake. You found a recipe online, bought the ingredients, and followed the method on the webpage. However, you didn’t set a timer to tell you when it would be ready – maybe you didn’t even notice the time you put the cake in the oven. You decided to open the oven to check the cake…but the rush of cold air from the open oven door made the cake sink.

Now, let’s break this down:

• 1) The experience of making the cake
  • What happened – what were the various steps you took making the cake? Did you enjoy it? Was it a bit of a chore? Did you find it relaxing – or stressful? Did you eat cake mixture straight out of the bowl? Is it something you’d like to do again?
• 2) What went right or wrong, and what can I learn from that?
  • Well, a lot of things went RIGHT. You found a recipe, you bought the right ingredients, you combined them correctly, put the mixture into tins and put it in an oven heated to the correct temperature. The issue was one of timing and the door being opened too soon.
• 3) Use your analysis at Step 2 to plan for next time
  • Because you now know what the problem was, you can make sure it doesn’t happen again. You could set a timer on your phone, or make sure you check the time the cake went in and ensure you’re not distracted while it’s cooking.
• 4) The next experience
  • So, you’re thinking…but the diagram only has three stages? Yes – but the point about reflection is that you are never really finished. You will take your learning from the experience and apply it the next time you find yourself in a similar situation. Then you will again think about what went well and what didn’t – and make another plan. This is how we learn, develop and grow.
  • Maybe next time the cake comes out perfectly, it’s delicious and everyone thinks you are a baking genius. Great. And what will you do after that? Maybe now you’ve mastered the basics you want to try a more elaborate cake? Or put chocolate chips in it? Who knows – but your decision will be based on more reflection…and so the cycle will go on.

And it’s important to remember that, whilst it’s sad that your cake didn’t work out first time, you wouldn’t be embarrassed by it or think it makes you any less of a person. You will also realise that one mistake doesn’t affect your ability to make better cakes in the future. This is true for all reflections – even those which feel more important than making a cake, such as reflecting as part of your university work or in a job.

None of us are perfect, but all of us can learn – and when we learn, we grow. That’s why reflection is such an important skill to develop. All of us will face new and challenging situations in our lives – it’s not about getting it right the first time but the reflecting we do in order to improve that matters.

Equally, if you tend to be too hard on yourself, reflection will provide you with crucial opportunities to identify what you are doing right and commend yourself for those decisions or approaches.

Do I always need to reflect by myself?

Although the learning you take from an experience is personal, reflection doesn’t have to happen in solitude. There are lots of opportunities to collaborate when you are reflecting. For example, you could...

• Ask for feedback from someone else;
• Get other people’s perspectives on the situation you are reflecting on;
• Talk through the event with another person;
• Have a de-brief;
• Read up on best practice.

However, the final analysis of the situation – and what you decide to do moving forward – should be yours. You are ultimately responsible for your own decisions and actions, and reflection, when it’s done properly, will help you do this with confidence.

If reflection feels hard

If you have never done reflective thinking before, it may feel uncomfortable at first. This is normal. Reflection, especially in an academic setting, can be unlike anything you have been asked to do before. When you write an essay or report – or do a numerical calculation – you are focussing on something external to you. When you reflect, you are being asked to place yourself and your experience at the forefront of your work and this can feel very strange indeed.

You may also find the process itself difficult: which order should you think about things? Have you gone into enough detail? Getting into a place mentally where you can focus quietly and objectively on an experience might also be challenging at first.

The most important thing to remember is that reflection is a skill – it will get easier and feel less strange the more you do it. These tips should help you:

• Remember that reflection is not about ‘being wrong’ or ‘judging’ yourself.
  • Equally, it’s not about pretending everything went brilliantly if it didn’t. Instead, it’s about being honest about an experience so you can learn and grow from it. Remember what happened to the cake – it’s just what happens sometimes.
• There is no right or wrong reflective response.
  • ​​​​​​​There may be certain stages you are expected to work through (see the various reflective models here) and theory or secondary research you need to consider, but the experience itself – and your response to it – will be unique.
• Think about jotting down what happened during, or soon after, the event.
  • ​​​​​​​This will help you remember the detail when you come to do your full reflection. Remember also that your understanding of the experience may change as time passes and you gain more perspective. This is okay. In fact, it may be helpful to think about how and why your understanding of events has shifted with time.
• Give yourself enough time and space to reflect fully.
  • ​​​​​​​Particularly if you are reflecting as part of your course, you will need to think about your experience more than once – maybe even from different perspectives. Allow time for this. Reflecting isn’t just about remembering what happened: it’s about putting those memories into perspective, analysing them and deriving meaning from them. It will take time for the full picture to develop.
• Find a working environment which allows you to focus fully on your reflection.
  • ​​​​​​​This is most likely to be somewhere you can concentrate without interruption and where you feel safe and secure.
• Consider talking through your experience with someone else.
  • ​​​​​​​Although remember it is your impression of the event or experience that matters: don’t be tempted to pass someone else’s thoughts off as your own.
• Reflection is a skill that requires a lot of executive function.
  • ​​​​​​​Because of this, some people may find reflection trickier than others, including some neurodiverse folk. If this is the case, use one of the models to give you structure, break the reflective process down into manageable stages (give yourself breaks in between) and allow yourself time to revisit the process more than once. You could also try working with a friend to motivate you: setting the same goals and targets as them to help keep you on track.
• Try some mini-reflections to normalise the process.
  • ​​​​​​​Use a reflective model and reflect on everyday things that don’t really matter – like whether or not your dinner tasted nice. This should mean that being in the reflective zone begins to feel more comfortable.
• Instead of trying to power through a difficulty, take some time to think about how you are feeling.
  • Do you have enough information or the right resources to reflect properly? Is there something in the process you feel uncertain about? When you have pinpointed the thing (or things) you feel might be an issue, you can take steps to resolve them.
• Finally, don’t forget you have support networks to help you if you really feel stuck.
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Talk to fellow students, your class tutor or lecturer – and of course Academic Skills staff.

Driscoll's reflective model

One of the reasons why John Driscoll’s model is popular is because it is straightforward and easy to understand. It grew from work done by Terry Borton (1970) who gave us the three central questions – ‘What? So what? Now what?’ – that were also alighted on, completely coincidentally, by Driscoll and a colleague (Driscoll, 2007).

Driscoll himself revised this model on two occasions – his earliest version was developed in 1994 and he refined it twice, once in 2004 and then again in 2007. However, the basic, original model remains a good starting point, and its simplicity does not mean that it cannot be used to structure a detailed and meaningful reflective experience. Explore the basic model by clicking the hotspots in the infographic below (see the accessibility link to access the infographic in alternate format).

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

Want more?

• This infographic depicts a more complex version of Driscoll’s model.
• The full e-book of Driscoll's Practising Clinical Supervision is also available to UoS students via the library.

References

Kolb's experiential learning model

David A. Kolb’s model is slightly more complex than Driscoll’s. It could be argued that Kolb's model breaks down the second stage of Driscoll's model to create two distinct stages; this can invite a more in-depth analysis of the situation. Kolb referred to his model as one of ‘experiential learning’ rather than reflection. This is because at the heart of his philosophy lay the belief that all new understanding and learning comes about as the result of ‘grasping and transforming experience’ (Kolb, 2015).

Explore the hotspots in the infographic below to learn more (see accessibility link below to access this information in an alternate format).

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

References

Gibbs' reflective cycle

This model is once again more complex than the one before. Some people will find a detailed approach helps them get more out of their reflection. It can be useful if you are writing your reflection down – for example, as part of an assessment or piece of coursework – because you have a much more robust structure you can use to shape your writing.

However, some people feel that they struggle with it specifically because of the detail. They feel that it is too constraining and they cannot map it easily onto real-world events, which are often messy and complicated. In essence though, it is built on the same principles that we saw in the Driscoll model: all you are doing is taking an event, analysing what happened, and making a plan that allows you to move forward with more confidence.

Explore the hotspots in the infographic below to learn more about the stages of Gibbs' reflective cycle. Use the accessibility link below the image to access the information in an alternate format.

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

References

Clark's reflective model

Dr Nicola Clark is a nurse and university lecturer. She feels that students often struggle with conventional reflective models and decided to create one which would help them formulate their reflective writing more naturally. Her model was conceived primarily as a way of structuring reflections in academic writing, but it is helpful for any sort of reflection. Although it has more components than any of the models we have looked at so far, it breaks down the process into easy-to-understand questions.

Explore Dr Clark's model via the hotspots in the cycle depicted below. You can view an alternate version of the information using the accessibility link, below.

Click here to view the accessible version of this interactive content

References