‘It sort of feels uncomfortable’: problematising the assessment of reflective practice

Abstract

This article forms part of an exploration of assessment on one part‐time higher education course: a professional qualification for teachers and trainers in the learning and skills sector, which is delivered on a franchise basis across a network of colleges in the north of England. This article proposes that the validity of the assessment of reflective practice, a key component of many higher education programmes in addition to the course being researched here, is contestable. Through an analysis informed by social practice accounts of literacy, the article suggests that the ways in which reflective practice is assessed, and the ways in which the crucial requisites of validity are assigned to it, mask complexities and contradictions in both how students write reflective assignments, and how tutors read them. This article argues for a new, critical analysis of the assessment of reflective practice and raises a number of questions about the validity of the process.

Keywords:

• assessment
• academic literacies
• approach to learning
• reflective practice
• literacy