Critical Reflection: Overview and Latest Ideas

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Critical Reflection Overview and Latest Ideas

• Jan Fook
• South West London Academic Network

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A sceptical voice

• Does anyone not reflect?
• Do we really know what it means (in practical
  terms)?
• Is it possible to pinpoint in concrete terms how
  it changes your actions?
• How do you do it when most workplaces are too
  busy, and bureaucracy and outcome led?

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Four key aspects

• Actually what is critical reflection? And how
  orthodox/desirable is it?
• Many different perspectives and frameworks
• Changing contexts and the ongoing introduction of
  new ideas
• Debates and pragmatic difficulties eg. how to
  reflect in unreflective contexts? How to do it at
  organisational levels

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What is CR?

• Is it the same as reflection, reflective
  practice, reflexivity, critical thinking???? a
  plethora of terms used interchangeably
• Comes from different disciplines/professions eg.
  education, management, health and social
  professions, social sciences

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What is CRcont

• Arises from practical theorising and therefore
  not academically approached.also so orthodox
  that people assume they/others know what it means
• Varies from learning from experience, examining
  foundations/assumptions, thinking about, using
  personal experience, turning back on self,
  deconstructing, etc.

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• Actually quite complex if we put all these
  different meanings together..
• Involves learning from experience by examining
  fundamental assumptions, reintegrating
  experiences (and reformulating meaning and
  principles for living), resulting in new
  guidelines for action.

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How beneficial/desirable is it?

• So orthodox it tends not to be questioned
• So orthodox that people think they can fit it in
  with current activities and cultures eg. tick
  box reflection
• What evidence is there? Hard to obtain re such
  big issues

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Different perspectives

• Have moved with the times and also overlapped
• Educational (eg. Dewey, Boud et al)
• Professional education (eg. Schon)
• Critical education (eg. Mezirow, Brookfield)
• Critical social science (eg. Giddens)
• Linguistic traditions (eg. deconstruction)
• Relational (eg. Ruch)

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Different frameworks

• Different perspectives indicate different
  analytical frameworks for conducting reflective
  processes and for interpreting experience
• What frameworks to use? Is it important to be
  able to put all aspects together?

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Changing contexts and newer ideas

• New inter/professionalism
• Meaning and existential aspects together with
  more critical/social aspects eg. productive
  reflection
• (Boud 2006, 2010 Fook, 2010)
• Frameworks based on eastern philosophies
• (Humphrey, 2009)
• The problem of the nature of experience
• (Fook, 2010)

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The nature of experience and learning from
experience

• Experience is not always easy to describe or
  articulate (in a way which represents it
  accurately)
• Experience is complex, contextual and holistic
• Is made up of many different aspects (eg.
  emotion, thoughts, action, interpretation) which
  are fluid (constantly subject to being remade)

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• Involves initial sensations, cultural
  interpretations, structural realities
• Is at least both personal and social (not
  separable)
• Needs to be able to be integrated into a coherent
  sense of self and a coherent sense of
  direction/set of values (for learning to occur)

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• How do we find (create?) a framework for critical
  reflection which allows us to do all the
  foregoing?

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Debates and pragmatic issues

• How to capture and represent experience in a
  meaningful way?
• How to create (safe) spaces?
• How to incorporate into daily practice?
• How to make organisational?

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Therefore

• we have to find a way of critically reflecting
  which is
• Structured
• Practical
• Meaningful
• Speaks to workplace demands

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References

• Boud et al (2006) (eds) Productive Reflection at
  Work
• Boud (2010) in Bradbury et al (eds) Beyond
  Reflective Practice New Approaches to
  Professional Lifelong Learning
• Fook (2010) in Bradbury et al (as above)
• Fook Gardner (2007) Practising Critical
  Reflection
• Humphrey, C. (2009) By the light of the Tao,
  European Journal of Social Work, vol. 12, no. 3.
  (whole special issue on CR)
• Pockett, R. Giles, R.(2008) Critical
  Reflection Generating Theory from Practice
• Ruch, G. (2009) Identifying the critical in a
  relaitonship-based model of reflection EJSW (as
  above)

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What is critical reflection?

• Learning from/making (positive) meaning of
  experience (eg. Boud, Mezirow) (we all do it but
  may not be aware of it, but there are better and
  worse ways of doing it)
• Process of unearthing deeper assumptions (eg.
  Schon) (not as easy to do as it looks)
• What makes it critical unearthing fundamental
  (dominant) assumptions about power ideology
  critique (eg. Brookfield) (good PC analysis but
  not always where people are at?)

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My version

• Involves both theory and practice
• a clear rationale and analysis
• and..
• A clear and structured process for conducting it

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Aims of critical reflection

• to improve practice by learning directly from
  experience
• By engaging in a process of examining the
  fundamental assumptions implicit in practice
  experience (and understanding personal and social
  connections)
• And devising changed thinking and practices from
  this new awareness

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Involves.

• Learning from experience and creating practice
  theory and meaning from it
• Ongoing scrutiny of practice
• A form of accountability/supervision
• A form of personal, professional and
  organisational leanring

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Related theories

• Reflective practice the gap between theory and
  practice (eg. Schon)
• Postmodernism/deconstruction/the linguistic turn
  how our language/discourse constructs our
  knowledge
• Reflexivity how who we are (socially and
  personally) constructs our knowledge (eg. Taylor
  and White)
• Critical perspectives how personal experience
  is linked with social/power arrangements, and how
  social awareness leads links with social change
  (eg. Brookfield)

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Theories of experience??
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Reflective practice

• Gap between theory and practice, between implicit
  and explicit ideas
• The limitations of explicit rules or theory
• The need to create theory (practice) in context
• How our practice actually creates knowledge

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Reflexivity

• The mirror
• We ourselves are instruments for creating
  knowledge, therefore who we are (all aspects) has
  a role in how we see/understand the world
• physical, emotional, social, historical,
  structural influences in shaping knowledge

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Postmodernism/deconstruciton/the linguistic turn

• How we speak about things constructs the way we
  see/understand them some things are left out
  others are constructed as binaries
• There may be many different (and contradictory
  ways of seeing things)
• How things are see often has to do with power

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Critical perspectives

• Recognises that power is both personal and social
  and they are linked
• Individuals can hold social beliefs
• Understanding the link is important in making
  social changes

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Basic method/process

• Focuses on
• Specific instances of practice (critical
  incidents)
• To unsettle (dominant) implicit assumptions
  (stage 1)
• In order to discover and change relevant thinking
  and practices and reformulate a framework for
  practice (stage 2)
• Uses critical reflective questions derived from
  theories
• May be used in a number of ways (eg. Small
  groups, self-reflection)
• In an ethical learning climate

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Critical reflective questions reflective

• what are my implicit assumptions and how do they
  differ from my explicit ones
• How can I use this awareness to change my
  practice?
• Eg. what does my practice imply about my
  fundamental values? What am I assuming about the
  nature of human beings? Society? power and
  conflict?

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Reflexive questions

• How do I influence what I see?
• How does what I am looking for influence what I
  find?
• Eg. where do my assumptions come from? How does
  who I am affect socially what I see? How do my
  emotions affect my knowledge?

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Postmodern/deconstructive

• How does my language construct what I see?
• Eg. what language patterns do I use? What
  binaries exist? What other perspectives am I
  leaving out?

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Critical questions

• How do I participate in power? What are the
  connections between my personal experience and my
  social context? And how can I change my practice
  with this awareness?
• Eg. what self-defeating beliefs do I hold? Do I
  see myself as powerless? How do I see other
  peoples power? How do I understand
  responsibility? What do I believe about how
  organisational an dpersonal power is connected?

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Critical (significant) incident

• An event which is significant in some way to the
  learner/participant
• Descriptive and basic as possible
• Why critical
• Context
• Concrete description
• Used as raw material for reflection

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The ethical learning climate of critical
reflection critical acceptance

• Trust respect
• Acceptance not affirmation
• Focus on professional learning
• Right to draw limits
• Focus on story or construction
• Openness to multiple and contradictory
  perspectives
• Responsibility (agency) not blame

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An example of critical reflection

• Cynthia..
• A relatively new social worker in a hospital
• Incident involving finding out that a client had
  died
• Burst into tears
• Critical because she felt out of control
• Assumptions about feeling emotional as equated
  with lack of control?
• On a deeper level assuming that a good
  professional is in control and therefore does not
  feel emotions

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Cynthiacont.

• Where did this come from?
• ..taking on the views of other professionals

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Stage 2..

• Therefore a need to question whether she agreed
  (or not) with other professionals about being
  emotional
• She spoke of creating her own view of
  professionalism as one which incorporated being
  emotional eg. emotional professionalism

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My example..

• Why critical? Happens a lot
• Context job involves lots of meetings with very
  senior level people (mostly chaired by men)
• Incident couldnt understand why meeting not
  focused in a positive way, talking around issues,
  ended up not saying much

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Facilitating a CR session

• Start with description of incident
• Ask for clarification of incident of facts
• Allow CR questioning (from group members) in a
  way which facilitates the persons own search for
  assumptions (deeper the better)
• After the person appears to be uncovering deeper
  assumptions and becoming aware of a different
  perspective on the incident, draw to a close by
  asking the person to try and sum up where has
  the discussion taken them, or what are they
  taking away?

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Benefits and outcomes of critical reflection

• Rational
• Emotional
• Values
• Practice

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Rationality

• Better able to abstractify and understand theory
• More considered and evidence-based
• Better decision-making and more choice
• Better able to work with uncertainty and multiple
  perspectives

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Self and emotions

• Increased self awareness
• Overcome personal blocks
• Resolve dilemmas
• Recognise and use power of emotion

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Value-based practice

• More inclusive (less judgemental)
• Able to recognise different perspectives
• more awareness of personal agency ie. empowerment

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Direct links with practice

• Enhanced sense of professionalism
• Better connected with colleagues
• Practice not entirely solution-focused leads to
  better sense of having skills
• Better integration of personal/professional
• Better ability to learn from practice

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Whats needed now?

• Moving on from uncritical orthodoxy?
• Better links with theory
• Matching the practice with the intent
• More and better research?
• Capturing the experience
• Identifying benefits and outcomes
• More systematic and widespread evaluations
• Better organisational practices

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Issues in conducting critical reflection in
organisations

• Current models of critical reflection learning
  are individual
• Finding space and time
• Current organisational culture is inhibiting (eg.
  blame culture)

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Using critical reflection in the organisation

• First,
• we need to remember that
• organisations and individuals are intertwined
  each shapes the other.
• Critical reflection can help us learn about how
  individuals make sense of their organisations and
  their place within them.

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• Second,
• The organisation is more than the sum of its
  parts
• BUT
• individual change can spark a change in
  organisational culture.
• Critical reflection can help individuals find
  ways to enact different cultures

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• Third,
• Finding spaces doesnt have to be hard.
• Opportunities may exist for critical reflection
  in spaces which already exist
• Supervision
• Team meetings
• Staff development
• Critical friends and mentoring

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The challenge

• Fourth,
• Cultural changes need to be supported by
  structural changes.
• What new structures and practices need to be
  developed to support a critically reflective
  culture in my organisation?
• What do I need to think and do differently?