Are you talking to me? Assessing discourses on reflection

Abstract

This paper discusses the question of how to assess academic discourse on reflection from a dialogical point of view. The starting point of this research was Schön’s well-known ‘reflection-in-action’ model, which was expanded to include aspects of discursive analysis. A corpus of two sets of reflexive reports (26 in total) was analyzed along four analytical dimensions: self-reference, modality, meta-discourse and domains of reflection. These dimensions were subsequently subdivided into 13 variables. Statistical analysis of these variables resulted in the construction of five different modes of reflection, two of which highly correlate with an independent rating of perceived ‘good reflection’. This research gives evidence for the proposition that there are sensible patterns to be discovered in reflective writing, and that these patterns provide insights into the narrative styles used by the authors of reflection reports.

Keywords:

• reflective practice
• discourse on reflection
• dialogical viewpoint
• modes of reflection
• Self-relexivity

Notes

1. Although Spearman’s coefficient could have been used here, the average ranks are based on two sets of ranks ranging from 1 to 13, giving us tied ranks before calculating averages for the combined set. Some literature suggests Kendall’s Tau to be a more suitable correlation coefficient when working with tied ranks (see also Howell, 1997, p. 293).

2. In the online version of this paper, high correlations are marked green and low correlations are marked red.