Writing the (researcher) self: reflective practice and undergraduate research

This paper discusses the way in which postmodern emergence was used to assist a group of undergraduate students come to new understandings of research practice as they participated in a reflective component of an Undergraduate Research Summer School. Students were encouraged to ‘write the (researcher) self’ through a collaborative writing group based on the theoretical and pedagogical work of Somerville. Postmodern emergence highlights three stages of learning; firstly, assigning time for wondering, then a liminal space for becoming and finally an opportunity for generating new knowledge. This article is both the tangible product of this emergence reflective writing process and a recommendation about the capacity of undergraduate students to engage with their own professionalisation and meaning-making.     

Development of the reflective practice questionnaire: preliminary findings

This study introduces a new reflective practice questionnaire (RPQ) that can be used to assess self-reported measures for investigating the experiences, benefits, and potential pitfalls of reflective practice and reflective supervision. This questionnaire sets itself apart from previous self-report measures of reflective practice by the ability to administer to individuals working in any service industry (e.g. psychology, nursing, education, and others). This will allow for future investigations that can compare and contrast across different contexts and professions. This will further the understanding of how reflective practice impacts those engaged with the process. The present study provides preliminary evaluation of the questionnaire with samples from the general public (Study 1), and mental health practitioners (Study 2). The questionnaire includes a number of short four-item sub-scales for evaluating reflective practice including: reflective-inaction; reflective-on-action; reflective with others self-appraisal; desire for improvement; confidence (general); confidence (communication); uncertainty; stress interacting with clients; and job satisfaction. A six-item attitude towards reflective supervision scale is also included in the research. Results suggest that reflective practice can foster confidence and further a desire for self-improvement. However, results also indicate how reflective practice might increase uncertainty and stress in some individuals. Study 2 reveals that a more positive appraisal of reflective supervision is associated with greater selfreported reflection, desire for improvement, and confidence.     

Reflective practice and foreign language classroom anxiety: video-stimulated recall at work

Reflective practices have been shown to improve the effectiveness of learning and teaching processes. In this study, video-stimulated recall technique was employed as a method of motivating language learners to reflect on their oral production tasks. In this experimental study, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) was administered to control and treatment groups before and after an eight-week module during which video-stimulated recall interviews were conducted with students in the treatment group. Statistical analyses revealed that pre- and post-test FLCAS scores differed within the treatment group but not within the control group. The results also suggested that stimulated recall is an effective reflective tool which assists students in noticing and reflecting upon the symptoms and causes of anxiety in the classroom.     

Being ordinary in extraordinary places: Reflective practice of the total situation in a total institution

This paper examines a ‘Foulkesian type’ Balint group for psychiatry trainees set in a high secure forensic hospital. Within a Balint group, group processes and dynamics are not examined. Deviation from this format is construed as resistance, and destructively getting in the way of the primary task.

This paper reports on a case‐based reflective practice group operating on a more Foulkesian group analytic model and argues that the revised principles of method proposed here – paying attention to context; group processes; and creating an atmosphere where group curative factors are in play – can help trainees to sustain an emotional reservoir for their patients. Further, these principles do not get in the way of the primary task but can add to an understanding of the individual transference and counter‐transference issues, and can place these in context within the organization and society. This is particularly important in total institutions such as forensic units.

Clinical material from this group is used to support this claim.     

Letter writing as a reflective practice: understanding the shuffling,shifting, and shaping of a researcher identity

This article presents letter writing as a form of arts-based inquiry and reflective practice. The author argues that letter writing can be employed to develop a reflective space for autobiographical reflection. The letter featured here captures and demonstrates the shuffling, shifting, and shaping processes of the author’s researcher identity through letter writing, and is informed by the theoretical underpinnings of reflective practice. It records and investigates the experiences that the author underwent during a compulsory course in the first year of a doctoral program at a North American university. Three interrelated themes are identified in the letter: the researcher identity in crisis, the nature of research, and future researcher identity. It is concluded that letter writing can facilitate the self-evolution, self-introspection, self-awareness, and identity change that emerges with, and through, reflection. Letter writing as a reflective practice offers the benefits of developing self-knowledge, independent thought, critical thinking, and deconstructive understanding of one’s experiences.     

The impact of reflective practice in a university language class

This study by a university professor of foreign language examines what impact reflective practice has on students’ overall performance in a university language class. The findings support that reflective practice has a positive impact on students’ performance and their own role in learning. The intertwining nature of reflection in all contexts of learning processes strengthens instructional practices which students favorably described throughout this study.     

The evolution of epistemology and concepts in an iterative-generative reflective practice: the importance of small differences

Using a contextualist epistemology, it would be expected that regional differences in community psychology would develop over time. It is argued that the epistemology and theory of Western Australian community psychology, while largely based on North American approaches, has developed its own idiosyncracies. These developed through the integration of practice and theory in an iterative-generative fashion. The process of development is conceptualized in terms of Schön's and Altman's distinctions between foundational knowledge, and professional and socially responsive knowledge (I. Altman, 1996; D. A. Schön, 1983). It has also been characterized as an incremental development based on the reflection on tacit and conceptual knowledge. From the small differences that have developed between regions, a dialogue can emerge that will better allow understanding of how social forces shape people's actions.     

Sailing through social LA GRRAACCEESS: tool for deconstructing and facilitating reflective and reflexive practice

Reflective and reflexive practice has become an integral component of practitioner professional training, particularly within professions associated with psychology and nursing. One way of facilitating reflective and reflexive practice is to integrate sensitivity of social interrelated constructs and social differences in relation to Gender, Race, Religion, Age, Abilities, Class, Culture, Ethnicity, Education, Sexual orientation and Spirituality as outlined in the GRRAACCEESS acronym. Inspired from the eighteen-century sailing vessel replica ‘La Grace’, this paper extends Burnham’s original GRRAACCEESS acronym by adding ‘Language’ and ‘Anatomy’ to form the ‘LA GRRAACCEESS’ model. This paper explores the merits and implications of the LA GRRAACCEESS model in order to assist practitioners with unravelling or deconstructing reflective practice and encourage ongoing mindful reflective practice.     

Transactions in doing design-based research for designing curriculum: a self-study

Design-based research (DBR) is an emerging methodology in teacher education research that researchers claim has strong potential in systematically designing and using instructional strategies and tools to develop, enact, and sustain effective learning environments. Studies have been conducted employing this methodology, but very little research has been made on the process of engaging in DBR for designing curriculum. Through a self-study, I found that using DBR as a model for creating curriculum draws from personal meaning-making, where I tapped on my own education, background, and experiences in literacy instruction to create curriculum. The other dimensions to the DBR process were more intangible and thus harder to negotiate. These included the political aspects, where decision-making was needed regarding course components. Keeping positive relationships with stakeholders was another challenging dimension in order to achieve a collectively meaningful curriculum. Finally, dispositions on literacy instruction also implied tension on the process since dispositions are not necessarily aligned with some DBR principles.     

Early reflections on becoming a therapist: Development of reflective practice in clinical training programmes in an Australian context

The development of competent counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists depends upon not only the clinical competencies, but also the development of the person as the psychotherapist. This qualitative study investigated the experiences of twenty provisional psychologists enrolled in a university‐based clinical psychology training programme. Participants were requested to write reflective essays describing their experiences in relation to their first year of training. Utilising an interpretative phenomenological approach methodology, three superordinate themes were identified: beginning awareness and internalisation of the role of the therapist, therapy as an inter‐subjective experience, and personal transformation. Themes encompassed a range of key areas identified by trainee therapists as central to their development as reflective practitioners. Findings from this study may contribute to the small but growing literature base explicating the early lived experience of being a therapist working from an integrative framework. The findings contribute to our knowledge of the critical elements involved in fostering the theoretical, practical and reflective processes involved in becoming a competent therapist.     

Double narrative of a researcher and the researched: the journey of English-language learning

As I embarked on my PhD study in Australia, I felt excited because my study was born out of reflection on my own journey of English-language learning. I decided to use my experiences as a touchstone for an understanding of the experiences of others like me. The study presented here is part of a larger study and is a double narrative that explores the researcher’s and the four participants’ experiences of learning English language in their home country contexts and also in Australia while they are studying in an Australian tertiary context. Through a reflective practice, I have reflectively studied my and the participants’ experiences with language learning strategies (LLS) to improve English-language skills and to better socialise into Australian academic and social discourses as international students. By linking the researcher and the researched closely, this research makes a contribution to English learning and teaching on the development of English-language skills of international students through the use of LLS. It provides some implications to institutions and advice to students like me.     

Toward an Ethical Reflective Practice of a Theory in the Flesh: Embodied Subjectivities in a Youth Participatory Action Research Mural Project

The focus of this paper is to demonstrate how embodied subjectivities shape research experiences. Through an autoethnography of my involvement in a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) after‐school program with low‐income and working‐class youth of Color from predominantly Latinx communities I examined my embodied subjectivities, via an ethical reflective practice, as these surfaced in the research context. Autoethnography is presented as a tool to facilitate an ethical reflective practice that aligns with heart‐centered work. Drawing from an epistemology of a theory in the flesh (Anzaldúa & Moraga, 1981), embodied subjectivities are defined by the lived experiences felt and expressed through the body, identities, and positionalities of the researcher. The article concludes with implications for the development of community psychology competencies that attend to the researcher's embodied subjectivities.     

Tips to make research teaching and learning enjoyable and productive for counsellors,psychotherapists and their tutors

This article identifies the learning expectations and experiences of qualified counsellors and psychotherapists undertaking higher education awards with specific regard to research activity. Drawing on the current literature and some early findings from focus group research with students, combined with our personal and professional experiences, we identify what contributes to a productive research experience. This is used as a basis to provide tips for both teachers and those new to research to make counselling and psychotherapy research enjoyable and productive. A full research paper is in preparation.     

Review of studies evaluating psychotherapy in bulimia nervosa: the influence of research methods

The purpose of the study was to test if design and research methods of studies predict outcome results of bulimia nervosa. Fifty-seven articles on outcome of bulimia nervosa were found through MEDLINE and PSYCHINFO databases and 25 were included in the statistical analysis. Percentages of patients with a good outcome ranged from 24% to 74% with a mean of 51.1%. The variables best predicting outcome were time to follow-up and number of symptoms evaluated in definition of good outcome whereas dropout, design of studies, treatments, and sample characteristics did not predict significantly. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Ethical and political implications of reflective practice among preservice teachers

This study investigates the ethical and political implications of reflective practice among preservice teachers. The author reviewed previous research which suggests the need for a more critical analysis of teacher education programs to implement more intensive reflective methodologies that foster authentic, caring, dispositional development as a moral obligation toward socially just practice rather than mere audited compliance with standards-based technical training. This position paper then analyzes preservice teacher education as an interdependent process of methodological development, perceptive development, and cognitive/affective development. Finally, the author makes recommendations for program modification to better prepare preservice teachers to conceptualize their transformative role in society.