Developing an integrated framework for critical reflection: from practice, to theory, towards research

Abstract

Critical reflection is increasingly regarded as a necessary requirement of professional practice. Yet there are many differing perspectives on what it is, and how it should be taught in professional education, and it is not easy to see how they all relate. This is often confusing for students and educators. This potentially leads to poor standards of reflection, and little rigorous research or development of critical reflection.

This thesis aims to address this problem by developing an integrated understanding of critical reflection. It draws together the different perspectives on critical reflection (including reflective practice, the concept of reflexivity, postmodernism and critical perspectives), and shows how these different understandings can be integrated under the rubric of learning from experience. Although the idea of learning from experience in fact underpins early understandings of critical reflection, this thesis demonstrates how later formulations add to and develop this conception. In doing this, the thesis traces the practical and theoretical development of critical reflection into a framework which might be used as a basis for researching professional practice experience.

The thesis begins with an introduction which outlines the context of my thinking about social work knowledge, in which my thinking about critical reflection is located. The body of the thesis traces how I have developed these frameworks, from a mix of practical experience, theorizing from different perspectives, and reviews of literature, into the potential for its use as a research method.

The concluding section of the thesis returns to the original outline of social work knowledge, and shows how this integrated understanding of critical reflection is also congruent with basic principles of social work. In this sense, the development of thinking about critical reflection is also a contribution to the development of social work knowledge.

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