Adult learners learning from experience: using a reflective practice model to support work‐based learning

Abstract

The learning achieved by individuals through their work‐based activity is unique and differentially experienced. It involves a combination of intuitive reasoning, inference and inductive thinking which is normally tacit and not available for analysis. In this paper I present research undertaken with groups of adult students training to work as mentors on a community mentoring project, in an attempt to explore how they learned from their mentoring encounters through the use of reflective practice. Each mentor was asked to keep a reflective diary using a specific model of guided reflection. A number of models of reflective practice are discussed in the paper and the briefing and debriefing methods used to help students understand the concept and processes are presented. Results from questionnaires and focus groups, in which mentors were asked to reflect on the efficacy of the reflective practice model, are also used. In addition, a discussion of earlier work with groups of students undertaking work placements in industry is also included in order to illustrate how the use of a model of structured reflection can have relevance for work‐based learning in a variety of contexts.