reflection in action: developing reflective practice in health and social services
TRANSCRIPT
Book Review
Reflection in Action: Developing Reflective Practice in Health and Social Services
B. Redmond
Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 2004
ISBN 0-7546-3356-X, 172 pp., £30.00
The overall level of satisfaction experienced by service users who access health and social
services may often be determined by the authenticity, openness and responsiveness shown
to them by individual professionals. However, many service users leave encounters with
professionals with feelings of helplessness and a sense that they have neither been listened
to nor understood.
This opening statement of Redmond’s book defines the intent of the content. The author
agues that the fundamental solution to the problem that she defines is reflective learning
and reflective practice. She proposes that creating a reflective teaching and learning
environment will bring about positive change in helping professionals’ underlying attitudes
to those they provide services for. The author was a social worker providing services for
those with intellectual disability and their families before becoming an academic and
engaging in research into the issues described in this book. In particular her work is
influenced by the seminal work of Donald Schon and supplemented by the work of Chris
Argyris.
The book is divided into nine chapters which overview the literature on reflection and in
particular the reflective theories of Argyris and Schon. The author describes a reflective
teaching model which involves creating an environment and a set of experiences for student
that ensure that they reflect as fully as possible on their teaching and learning in the context
of subsequently working in a caring environment. Five phases of encouraging reflection
during the teaching and learning processes are described. The first two involve the
introduction of students to the reflective learning model and to new ideas. The second stage
allows service users to talk to the class about their experiences and to give students the
opportunity to discuss with them their own current work with parents. The third phase
enables students to develop new perspectives in relation to the parents with whom they work
and to implement the reflective teaching and learning model by encouraging students to
develop critically reflective learning. The fourth stage of the reflective teaching and learning
model encourages students to develop still more complex views of service users and to
encourage students to analyse their own practice in an effective and productive manner
while reducing students’ defensiveness. The final phase is ending the research and reflecting
on the whole teaching and learning process to see whether the reflective model was helpful
and, if so, in what ways.
The author concludes: ‘‘the reflective model offers both teachers and professionals the
opportunity to review and restructure their work in a way that can make it more accessible to
those they aim to serve’’. ‘‘It also offers teachers, professionals and those with whom they
work a relationship which is more considered, more responsive and, ultimately more likely
to achieve long-lasting and meaningful change.’’
Journal of Interprofessional Care,
March 2006; 20(2): 213 – 214
ISSN 1356-1820 print/ISSN 1469-9567 online � 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13561820600617323
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The audience for this book is those involved in teaching students intending on training in
care-giving professions. The book is, in my opinion, rather dry and academic. It is quite
difficult to discern how it could be used in practice in many teaching and learning
environments. The book seemed more theoretical than practical and has a narrow
perspective, not taking into account international environments or diverse audiences. In a
multicultural world the omission of a focus on diversity issues was unfortunate.
The other major concern I had about this book was that it failed to take account of the
wider context within which teaching and learning practice occurs. The author describes the
teaching and learning experience but the focus is very much on her as an individual teacher
and her students as a group, and does not take account of the wider teaching milieu in the
department or organization or institution within which the teaching takes place.
It is good of course to have a profound and dynamic model of reflective teaching and
learning but if it is one course run by one tutor, and the wider department and organization
do not foster and sustain such an orientation, the course could create problems for students.
Their attempts to apply this highly introspective model to other aspects of their learning
could result in poor performance if this orientation is not valued by other educators.
Moreover if reflective practice is pursued by one individual in a care-giving environment it
may actually harm that individual in the sense that it brings them into opposition with a
wider political and managerial structures of the organization within which they work. These
broader political and organizational issues are neglected in the book, as is the provision of
research evidence to substantiate the fundamental claims for the efficacy of the approach the
author advocates.
Overall, I felt this book was not particularly relevant to the kinds of interprofessional issues
with which readers of JIC tend to be concerned and would be of more interest to a particular
group of teachers of healthcare professionals with an interest in reflective practice as a way of
teaching. It is a brave book based very much on one individual’s experiences and one
individual’s teaching strategy. However, I feel that it will not repay the hard work required
for most readers of the Journal of Interprofessional Care.
MICHAEL A. WEST
Organizational Psychology,
Aston Business School,
Aston University,
Birmingham, UK
214 Book Review
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