Frameworks for Reflection

John Dewey identified three characteristics or attitudes of people who are reflective  - open-mindedness, responsibility and wholeheartedness. At a basic level models of reflection exist to provide guidance to help us look back over events that have happened and to turn them into learning experiences for the future. In essence models of reflection help us to:

Look at an event - Understand it - Learn from it

There are a variety of strategies to implement reflective practice. Donald Schon refers to ‘reflection-in-action’ as analysis in the present tense (during the performance of a task) and 'reflection-on-action' as  retrospective analysis (after the performance of a task). Killion and Todnem (1991) categorize reflection in three directions:

Firstly, reflection-on-action requires looking back on what one has accomplished and reviewing the actions, thoughts, and product.

Secondly, reflection-in-action. In this activity, the individual is responsible for reflecting while in the act of carrying out the task. If, for example, the student is writing a story and has left out the setting, reflection-in-action could guide the correction of a major component of the story writing.

The final reflective form centres on reflection-for-action. This reflection form expects the participant to review what has been accomplished and identify constructive guidelines to follow to succeed in the given task in the future.

Reflection for action - Before
Forethought

Strategic Planning
Influential processes which precede efforts to act and set the stage for action
Goal setting increases self-efficacy and intrinsic interest
Self-motivation beliefs increase:

• Commitment

• Self-efficacy
• Outcome expectations
• Intrinsic interest/value
• Goal Orientation

Reflection in action - During
Performance or Volitional Control
Processes that occur action and affect attention and action

Self-observation, self-recording, self-experimentation allows learners to vary aspects of their performance

Self-control processes help learners to focus on tasks and optimize efforts including:

• Self-instruction
• Imagery
• Attention focusing
• Task Strategies

Reflection on action - After
Self-reflection

Self-judgment- Self-evaluation & Casual attribution

Self-reaction - Self-satisfaction/affect &Adaptive-defensive response

Processes which occur after performance efforts and influence a person’s response to that experience
Planning and implementing a strategy provides an evaluation metric for learners to attribute successes or failures to, rather than low ability