"Reflective practice occurs when you explore an experience you have had to identify what happened, and what your role in the experience was – including your behaviour and thinking, and related emotions. This, allows you to look at changes to your approach for similar future events. If reflective practice is performed comprehensively and honestly, it will inevitably lead to improved performances" (La Trobe University, 2015).
"Reviewing experience from practice so that it may be described, analysed, evaluated and consequently used to inform and change future practice. Importantly, reflection also involves opening up one's practice for others to examine, and consequently requires courage and open-mindedness as well as a willingness to take on board and act on criticism" (Bulman, 2008, p. 2).
Gibbs' reflective cycle involves 6 steps:
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Further Education Unit, Oxford Brookes University.
Description
Feelings
Evaluation
Analysis
Conclusion
Action plan
Johns' model of reflection uses 5 cues to help the practitioner reflect on an event/experience, to make sense of it and to learn through it:
There are various questions that can be asked for each section.
Description
Reflection
Influencing factors
Could I have dealt with it better
Learning
Johns, C. (1994). Nuances of reflection. Journal Of Clinical Nursing, 3(2), 71-74 4p. 10.1111/j.1365-2702.1994.tb00364.x
Rolfe's framework of reflective practice is based on Borton's (1970) model. It consists of three key questions:
What ...? - Descriptive level of reflection
So what ...? - Theory and knowledge building level of reflection
Now what ...? - Action-orientated (reflective) level of reflection
Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
1. Awareness
In the first step of Atkins and Murphy model of reflection it is essential to gain knowledge or awareness about the triggers that have caused discomfort. This step is not yet concerned with the whole situation because this will be described in the following section. Instead, it is now essential to identify one’s thoughts and emotions that have resulted from the experience. This means that an individual must be open and express him- or herself vulnerable to identify the discomforts. According to Atkins and Murphy model of reflection, analyzing personal feelings and thoughts in this way improves developments. In addition, discomfort can also be a result out of new experiences. This could include a discomfort caused by switching job positions if a new job has to be learned.
Awareness of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts:
2. Describe
Now that the personal emotions and thoughts have been analyzed, the Atkins and Murphy model of reflection states that it is time to describe the situation. In this step, an individual has to analyze the situation and key events that have occurred critically. For example, a particular environmental setting may have caused a trigger for an individual to experience discomfort, but it could be that a different environmental setting has prevented the discomfort from happening. For this reason, it is important to analyze and describe the situation. In this way, a better understanding will be realized why a discomfort occurred, and it will be easier to learn from this discomfort.
Describe the situation, including thoughts and feelings:
3. Analyse
In this step of Atkins and Murphy model of reflection, the individual must now analyse assumptions that he or she made, also referred to as the knowledge of the reflective practice participant. For example, before a situation occurred, the individual might have thoughts about the event. It is in step essential to determine whether the assumptions were correct or false. More importantly, Atkins and Murphy model of reflection states that the participant of reflective practice must additionally explore alternatives. This means that he or she must analyse how the behavior would have been different in a different setting.
Analyse feelings and knowledge relevant to the situation:
4. Evaluate
This step of Atkins and Murphy model of reflection may differ from one person to another. It is concerned with personally assessing how the knowledge of the previous step is relevant for improvements. The relevance of knowledge is therefore concerned with identifying if it helps to explain the problem or discomfort. It also deals with assessing how the problem could be solved. For a participant of reflective practice, it can help to analyze different scenarios and potential behaviors, but the positive effects of this way of reflection may differ per individual.
Evaluate the relevance of knowledge:
5. Identify
Based on the previously described steps of Atkins and Murphy model of reflection, it is now possible to identify the learnings. By this step, the model has assessed the emotions, situations, assumptions, and knowledge of the reflective practice participant. By integrating all elements, the participant of reflective practice can easily state learnings and make use of these in future situations.
Identify any learning which has occurred:
Adapted from: Business Bliss Consultants FZE. (November 2018). Atkins and Murphy Model of Reflection. https://nursinganswers.net/reflective-guides/atkins-and-murphy.php?vref=1
Atkins, S., & Murphy, K. (1994). Reflective practice. Nursing Standard, 8(39), 49-56.