critical reflection paper on your learning on research ethics

AMA Journal of Ethics ®

Illuminating the art of medicine, reflection-based learning for professional ethical formation.

One way practitioners learn ethics is by reflecting on experience. They may reflect in the moment (reflection-in-action) or afterwards (reflection-on-action). We illustrate how a teaching clinician may transform relationships with patients and teach person-centered care through reflective learning. We discuss reflective learning pedagogies and present two case examples of our preferred method, guided group reflection using narratives. This method fosters moral development alongside professional identity formation in students and advanced learners. Our method for reflective learning addresses and enables processing of the most pressing ethical issues that learners encounter in practice.

Introduction

How does one become a more ethical practitioner? We suggest that clinicians learn ethics through reflective practice and reflective learning. Reflective learning incorporates the lessons of experience into practice and integrates these lessons into one’s body of knowledge, providing context and meaning [1-6]. Reflection promotes mindfulness and self-awareness, both of which form the basis of effective patient interactions, especially with patients whom one finds difficult or challenging. Whether “reflecting-in-action” while with a patient or “reflecting-on-action” after having seen a patient [7], the reflective practitioner compares intended with actual outcomes. In ethics as well as other aspects of medicine, the practitioner considers if outcomes are optimal and, if not, what might have been done better. In this way, moral development progresses alongside professional identity formation as a lifelong process [8-10]. We will begin this paper with a case illustrating how ethics can be learned and then taught through reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. We will then describe the various methods for reflective learning, which have been used extensively by one of the authors (WTB) to promote learning of ethics and professional development [11-14], focusing on two synopses of vignettes that illustrate narrative reflection.

Case: Learning and Teaching Ethics through Reflection-in-Action and Reflection-on-Action

One of the authors (MG), having just begun as a faculty attending physician at a busy safety-net hospital, related this story: Ms. L had been a patient on many other services many other times, admitted frequently for lupus flares and always found to have a urine drug screen positive for cocaine. I saw the patient with my team of medical students and residents, sympathizing with her about her pain and talking with her about the dangers of crack cocaine. She nodded and acknowledged that, yes, she would try to quit. She was pleasant and thoughtful and seemed to mean what she said. But when I later reflected about the encounter, it felt lackluster. Our team had done what every team before had done, and the outcome of each of those well-meaning encounters had been the same.

I returned to the bedside alone and sat beside her. I reflected to myself, “Why were we not connecting better? What was I failing to learn about her life? What could I ask that others had not?” Perhaps the most important question I asked myself was, “Why can’t I understand her decision process?” And my answer was that I didn’t know her decision process.

I approached Ms. L with a more person-centered approach. “What is your life like outside of the hospital, Ms. L? What makes you like to use cocaine?” Her response changed the way I practiced medicine. She looked me in the eye and opened up about her life, describing an abusive boyfriend who had socially isolated her from friends and family. She could only leave the house for doctor appointments and hospitalizations, and the only people she saw were her boyfriend’s loud and crass friends who often filled the house. They brought cocaine with them, and she used it as a temporary escape. She knew all of the things that doctors had told her over the years, and she hated the drug. In her imprisonment, cocaine was the lesser of two evils.

Identifying a problem within the encounter and reflecting while I was with Ms. L—reflection-in-action—enabled me to see where we were off track and correct our course. I discussed with my team my conversation with Ms. L, and this subsequent reflection-on-action served as a teaching tool. We discussed good history-taking skills, compassion, bias and assumptions, and intimate partner violence, all of which are subjects taught in medical school and residency but not always within the context of building a caring relationship with the patient. By intertwining caring ethics into these lessons within a patient encounter, we make medical ethics more practical and approachable.

The case demonstrates ethics embedded in medical practice [11]. The physician’s compassionate efforts to elicit and understand the patient’s story and to empathize with—and thereby benefit—her patient illustrate caring ethics [10, 11, 15]. Reflection-in-action allowed the physician to go beyond her previous practice, which had not included asking the patient about her life and social situation, and to establish a more deeply ingrained habit in herself of considering the patient’s perspective [4-6, 16]. Later, mutual reflection-on-action ensured that her team appreciated the clinical and ethical importance of learning the patient’s perspective.

Applications of Reflective Learning in Medical Education

Reflective learning , wherein a person steps back and examines the approaches to a topic or experience, has been widely adopted by medical schools [2, 13], with reflective learning exercises being integrated into existing courses or special programs [13]. The Association of American Medical Colleges recommends reflective learning among its standard learning methods [17]. Pedagogical tools include narrative reflection using critical incidents, appreciative inquiry or other learner-generated narratives, case studies, journaling, reflective dialogical exercises with peers and mentors, role plays, and practical exercises [5]. Schemes are available to judge the depth of reflection, ranging from simply telling a story to providing opinions, justifications, supporting examples, analyses, strategies, and supporting evidence [18, 19].

Reflective learning involves several related concepts. Critical reflection (based on critical theory) examines the economic and power relationships that exist within social and institutional contexts [5]. Reflexivity refers to self-reflection, in which one examines one’s own assumptions and behaviors with respect to social roles and power relationships [5]. These methods can be applied to teaching ethics [18, 19].

One of the authors (WTB) has used guided group reflection on either critical incidents or appreciative inquiry narratives for medical students at Harvard Medical School, for residents in internal medicine at Emory University, and in multi-institutional faculty development programs, now applied at 28 medical schools [11-14]. Short narratives written by the learners are the subjects of discussion. The types of narratives used and the goals and methods of teaching reflective learning are described in more detail below.

Types of narratives . A critical incident (CI) in this setting is a narrative describing something that comes to mind as an important interaction, whether perceived positively or negatively by the learner [12, 13]. CI stories have the advantage of allowing students and other writers to process difficult experiences, such as challenging patient encounters, as well as to learn from positive experiences, such as having a good role model. Appreciative inquiry (AI) narratives are stories of success of a time when a learner was at his or her best [20]. The appreciative inquiry method as used in teaching medical humanism has been shown to build upon clinicians’ successes by increasing their awareness of, and motivating them to meet, their patients’ emotional needs [16]. Like free association, both methods uncover key experiences, including conflicts and difficulties that learners are currently struggling to surmount. AI narratives frequently address difficult situations that begin with a challenge that the learner successfully surmounts [16]. If not discussed and understood, unresolved or partially resolved incidents described in either type of narrative may fester, producing stress and inhibiting socialization [13-15].

Goals . The author’s goals for the reflective learning are threefold: first, to assist learners in becoming positively socialized into their roles and in forming professional identities; second, to enable them to process, gain perspective on, and come to terms with difficulties encountered on the road to becoming a professional; and, finally, to enable learners to become more self-aware and mindful practitioners who are capable of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action and who are committed to their professional and ethical values.

Teaching methods . Narratives can be written prior to or in the initial 10-15 minutes of a session. Narratives should be read word for word by their writers, with ample time for listeners to process each narrative. It is important that all participants have the opportunity to read their narratives, although they are given the option to decline if they wish. Confidentiality is of course important. The group size is usually around eight. Meetings generally last 90-120 minutes with no interruptions.

The facilitator may guide the group by role-modeling behaviors that deepen the reflective learning, such as empathically posing a question to the story-writer that calls for meaningful reflection. The facilitator also may actively intervene and interpret group members’ behaviors in ways that encourage them to support and empathize with other group members. A safe environment where group members feel their contributions are met with understanding allows for deep reflection as participants comfortably disclose difficult situations that they have faced in their professional lives.

Virtually all stories, like the examples now to be given, incorporate an ethical issue. Hence, these methods enable participants to develop ethically as well as professionally by processing the issues that are personally important to them. Two examples will illustrate using critical incident and appreciative inquiry narratives for reflective learning.

Teaching a Critical Incident Narrative

An indigent woman refused to see a medical student in the walk-in clinic. The attending physician explained that it was a “teaching unit” and the patient “had no choice.” The patient stormed out. The student wondered “how this patient, who fit the bill of the type of person I had always seen myself helping, actually saw me as being aligned with Dr. N against her” [21].

As facilitators, we would focus on this student’s professional development and socialization into the profession while maintaining her core ethical values [8, 9]. She is idealistic and wishes to serve the indigent. If unaddressed, this incident might foster cynicism [22, 23]. We might start by asking her how she feels about the incident. Is she angry or disappointed? The facilitator might empathize by saying, “I would have felt uncomfortable,” and adding, “I might have felt helpless if I couldn’t speak up.” Very likely, other students would say they have felt the same in similar situations, so she would feel supported. We would praise her social conscience and her sense of justice.

The group could assist the learner’s  professional socialization  by encouraging her to understand this incident from the perspectives of the teacher and the patient. How did the teacher justify his behavior to himself? How could the learner have taken the patient’s likely perspective into account in the interaction [24]? Why is the clinic organized in this way? Can we change it for the better?

The facilitator could suggest methods to the learner for dealing more directly with the situation, such as asking a seemingly innocent question of the teacher, like “Why would it be wrong for you to see the patient?” However, we know from our experience that many students will be too insecure to confront their teacher. Reasonable goals are to assuage guilt in this medical student and to have her leave the session feeling comfortable with her role and choice of career direction and more confident of her understanding of others’ viewpoints as well as feeling supported by her peers and facilitator, encouraged in her desire to help the less fortunate, and perhaps empowered to ask more questions should she encounter this type of situation in the future.

Teaching an Appreciative Inquiry Narrative

A 22 year old female presented with complaints of fevers, night sweats and a left groin mass consistent with an acute infection. The patient spoke tearfully, “I don’t want to die.” The parents stood by, obviously emotionally affected. I (the doctor) [knowing that the prognosis was good] knelt down beside her, held her hand, and told her, “You are not going to die” [25].

The next morning I ran into her [the patient’s] mother. A medical student was with me. The mother stated, “I really liked how you talked to my daughter yesterday and thank you so much for taking the time to explain…” I said to the student, “This is why I love what I do. This is why I went into medicine” [26].

This faculty physician’s story illustrates the potential benefits and rewards of being compassionate. The story shows how much patients and families appreciate compassionate doctoring. The teacher also encouraged a medical student to empathize by pointing out how rewarding to physicians and beneficial to patients these types of experiences are. She then reinforced the lesson by briefly reflecting on its ample meaning.

As facilitators, we might ask the writer to reflect in more depth on the personal meaning of the story. We suspect that this physician reached a new level of ability in delivering compassionate care [16]. We would want to reinforce her new abilities as a healer and note that her action was considered by some to be courageous, in hopes of reinforcing her high level of performance and strengthening her moral commitment to humanistic values.

Our view of teaching ethics by reflective learning leans heavily on the process of professional identity formation. This view reflects our observations that progression of medical professionals’ identity formation to higher levels may be facilitated by fully processing impactful experiences through reflection under good supervision during their development [27]. Identity formation is entwined with moral virtues and values. Kegan describes the highest stage of identity formation as becoming a person who can choose good moral values for herself and, like the physician in our AI example, internalize and live by them [8]. One can certainly profit from other methods of teaching ethics by reflective learning. For example, educators can assign students to write narratives or recall stories specifically about ethical dilemmas or difficult patient encounters. We have presented our open-ended approach to learning ethics using narrative reflection. We believe this is an effective learner-centered approach that promotes formation of professional identity as a humanistic clinician. For the practitioner, reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action enhance patient care, especially in difficult or challenging patient interactions, and promote lifelong learning of knowledge and skills.

• Health professions education/Humanities in health professions education
• Health professions education/Medical education

Schon DA.  Educating the Reflective Practitioner: Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 1990.

• Wald H, Davis SW, Reis SP, Monroe AD, Borkan JM. Reflecting on reflections: Enhancement of medical education curriculum with structured field notes and guided feedback. Acad Med. 2009;84(7):830-835. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Atkins TW, Murphy K. Reflection: a review of the literature. J Adv Nursing. 1993;18(8):1188-1192. PubMed Google Scholar

Finlay L. Reflecting on reflective practice. The Open University Practice-Based Professional Learning Center.  http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf . PBPL paper 52. Published January 2008. Accessed February 28, 2017.

Costa AL, and Kallick B. Learning through reflection. In: Costa AL, Kallick B eds.  Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; 2008:221-236.

Schon, 96, 118.

Kegan R.  The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 1982.

• Cruess RL, Cruess SR, Boudreau JD, Snell L, Steinert Y. Reframing medical education to support professional identity formation. Acad Med. 2014;89(11):1146-1451. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr. Supporting the moral development of medical students. J Gen Intern Med. 2000;15(7):503-508. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr. The ethics of patient care. JAMA. 2015;313(14):4121-4122. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr, Pels RJ, Lawrence RS, Arky RA. Becoming a doctor: critical-incident reports from third-year medical students. N Engl J Med. 1993;329(15):1130-1132. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr. Use of critical incident reports in medical education: a perspective. J Gen Intern Med. 2005;20(11):1063-1067. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr. The road to professionalism: reflective practice and reflective learning. Patient Educ Couns. 2010;80(3):327-332. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr. The ethics of caring and medical education. Acad Med. 2000;75(2):127-132. PubMed Google Scholar
• Branch WT Jr, Frankel R. Not all stories of professional identity formation are equal: an analysis of formation narratives of highly humanistic physicians. Patient Educ Couns. 2016;99(8):1394-1399. View Article PubMed Google Scholar

MedBiquitous Curriculum Inventory Workshop Group Standardized Vocabulary Subcommittee. Curriculum standardized instructional and assessment methods and resource types (September 2012 version). Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges; 2012.  https://medbiq.org/curriculum/vocabularies.pdf . Accessed February 28, 2017.

Aronson L, Niehaus B, Kruidering-Hall M, O’Sullivan P. The UCSF LEaP: a guide for reflective learning in medical education. MedEdPORTAL Publications; 2012.

• Wald HS, Borkan JM, Taylor JS, Anthony D, Reis SP. Fostering and evaluating reflective capacity in medical education: developing the REFLECT rubric for assessing reflective writing. Acad Med. 2012;87(1):31-50. View Article PubMed Google Scholar

Cooperrider D, Whitney D.  Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change . San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler; 2005.

Branch, Pels, Lawrence, Arky, 1130.

• Coulehan J, Williams PC. Vanquishing virtue: the impact of medical education. Acad Med. 2001;76(6):598-605. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Hojat M, Vegare MJ, Maxwell K, et al. The devil is in the third year: a longitudinal study of erosion of empathy in medical school. Acad Med. 2009;84(9):1182-1191. View Article PubMed Google Scholar
• Loignon C, Fortin M, Bedos C, et al. Providing care to vulnerable populations: a qualitative study among GPs working in deprived areas in Montreal, Canada. Fam Pract. 2015;32(2):232-236. View Article PubMed Google Scholar

Branch, Frankel, 1396.

Branch, Frankel, 1397.

• Branch WT Jr. Teaching professional and humanistic values: suggestion for a practical and theoretical model. Patient Educ Couns. 2014;98(2):162-167. View Article PubMed Google Scholar

Also in this Issue

Nested Tensions in Care

AMA Code of Medical Ethics ’ Opinions Related to Moral Psychology and “Difficult” Clinician-Patient Relationships

Lessons about So-Called “Difficult” Patients from the UK Controversy over Patient Access to Electronic Health Records

Repairing “Difficult” Patient-Clinician Relationships

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

• Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
• Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
• Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
• Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
• Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
• Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
• Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
• Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
• If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1.  Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

• Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
• Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
• Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2.  Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

• Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
• Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
• Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

• Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
• Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
• Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1)  introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

• Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
• Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
• Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

• << Previous: Writing a Policy Memo
• Next: Writing a Research Proposal >>
• Last Updated: Jun 3, 2024 9:44 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments

We’re reviewing our resources this fall (September-December 2024). We will do our best to minimize disruption, but you might notice changes over the next few months as we correct errors & delete redundant resources. 

Critical Reflection

A Critical Reflection (also called a reflective essay) is a process of identifying, questioning, and assessing our deeply-held assumptions – about our knowledge, the way we perceive events and issues, our beliefs, feelings, and actions. When you reflect critically, you use course material (lectures, readings, discussions, etc.) to examine our biases, compare theories with current actions, search for causes and triggers, and identify problems at their core.   Critical reflection is   not   a reading assignment, a summary of an activity, or an emotional outlet.   Rather,   the goal is   to change your thinking about a subject, and thus change your behaviour.

Tip: Critical reflections are common in coursework across all disciplines, but they can take very different forms. Your instructor may ask you to develop a formal essay, produce weekly blog entries, or provide short paragraph answers to a set of questions. Read the assignment guidelines before you begin.

How to Critically Reflect

Writing a critical reflection happens in two phases.

• Analyze:   In the first phase, analyze the issue and your role by asking critical questions. Use free writing as a way to develop good ideas. Don’t worry about organized paragraphs or good grammar at this stage.
• Articulate:   In the second phase, use your analysis to develop a clear argument about what you learned. Organize your ideas so they are clear for your reader.

First phase: Analyze

A popular method for analyzing is the three stage model: What? So What? Now what?

In the  What?  stage, describe the issue, including your role, observations, and reactions. The   what?   stage helps you make initial observations about what you feel and think. At this point, there’s no need to look at your course notes or readings.

Use the questions below to guide your writing during this stage.

• What happened?
• What did you do?
• What did you expect?
• What was different?
• What was your reaction?
• What did you learn?

In the second  So What?   stage, try to understand on a deeper level why the issue is significant or relevant. Use information from your first stage, your course materials (readings, lectures, discussions) -- as well as previous experience and knowledge to help you think through the issue from a variety of perspectives.

Tip:  Since you’ll be using more course resources in this step, review your readings and course notes before you begin writing.

Below are three perspectives you can consider:

• Academic perspective: How did the experience enhance your understanding of a concept/theory/skill? Did the experience confirm your understanding or challenge it? Did you identify strengths or gaps in your knowledge?
• Personal perspective:   Why does the experience matter? What are the consequences? Were your previous expectations/assumptions confirmed or refuted? What surprised you and why?
• Systems perspective:   What were the sources of power and who benefited/who was harmed? What changes would you suggest? How does this experience help you understand the organization or system?

In the third   Now what?   stage, explore how the experience will shape your future thinking and behaviour.

Use the following questions to guide your thinking and writing:

• What are you going to do as a result of your experiences?
• What will you do differently?
• How will you apply what you learned?

Second phase: Articulate

After completing the analysis stage, you probably have a lot of writing, but it is not yet organized into a coherent story. You need to build an organized and clear argument about what you learned and how you changed. To do so,   develop a thesis statement , make an   outline ,   write , and   revise.

Develop a thesis statement

Develop a clear argument to help your reader understand what you learned. This argument should pull together different themes from your analysis into a main idea. You can see an example of a thesis statement in the sample reflection essay at the end of this resource.

Tip: For more help on developing thesis statements, see our   Thesis statements  resource

Make an outline

Once you have a clear thesis statement for your essay, build an outline. Below is a straightforward method to organize your essay.

• Background/Context of reflection
• Thesis statement
• Introduce theme A
• Writer's past position/thinking
• Moment of learning/change
• Writer's current/new position
• Introduce theme B
• Introduce theme C
• Summarize learning
• Discuss significance of learning for self and others
• Discuss future actions/behaviour

Write and revise

Time to get writing! Work from your outline and give yourself enough time for a first draft and revisions.

Even though you are writing about your personal experience and learning, your audience may still be an academic one. Consult the assignment guidelines or ask your instructor to find out whether your writing should be formal or informal.

Sample Critical Reflection

Below are sample annotated paragraphs from one student’s critical reflection for a course on society and privilege.

Introduction

Background/context of reflection : I became aware of privileged positions in society only in recent years. I was lucky enough, privileged enough, to be ignorant of such phenomena, but for some, privilege is a daily lesson of how they do not fit into mainstream culture. In the past, I defined oppression as only that which is obvious and intentional. I never realized the part I played. However, during a class field study to investigate privileged positions in everyday environments, I learned otherwise.   Thesis:   Without meaning to, I caused harm by participating in a system where I gained from others’ subtle oppression. In one of these spaces, the local mall, everything from advertisements to food to products, to the locations of doorways, bathrooms and other public necessities, made clear my privilege as a white, heterosexual male.

Body paragraph

Topic sentence : Peggy McIntosh describes privilege as an invisible knapsack of tools and advantages. This description crystalized for me when I shopped for a greeting card at the stationary store. There, as a white, heterosexual male, I felt comfortable and empowered to roam about the store as I pleased. I freely asked the clerk about a mother’s day card.   Writer’s past position:   Previously, I never considered that a store did anything but sell products. However, when I asked the sales clerk for same sex greeting cards, she paused for a few seconds and gave me a look that made me feel instantly uncomfortable. Some customers stopped to look at me. I felt a heat move over my face. I felt, for a moment, wrong for being in that store.  I quickly clarified that I was only doing a report for school, implying that I was not in fact homosexual.   Writer’s current position:   The clerk’s demeanor changed. I was free to check, she said.  It was the only time during the field study that I had felt the need to explain what I was doing to anyone. I could get out of the situation with a simple clarification. But what if I really was a member of the homosexual community? The looks and the silence taught me that I should be feared.  I realized that, along with its products, the store was selling an image of normal. But my “normality” was another person’s “abnormality.”  After I walked out of the store I felt guilty for having denied being homosexual.

Summary of learning:   At the mall I realized how much we indirectly shame nonprivileged groups, even in seemingly welcoming spaces. That shame is supported every time I or any other privileged individual fails to question our advantage. And it leads to a different kind of shame carried by privileged individuals, too.   Value for self and others:   All of this, as Brown (2003) documents, is exacerbated by silence. Thus, the next step for me is to not only question privilege internally, but to publicly question covert bias and oppression. If I do, I may very well be shamed for speaking out. But my actions might just encourage other people to speak up as well.

Sample paragraphs adapted from James C. Olsen's Teaching Portfolio from Georgetown University .

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base

Methodology

• Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Published on October 18, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on May 9, 2024.

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from people.

The goals of human research often include understanding real-life phenomena, studying effective treatments, investigating behaviors, and improving lives in other ways. What you decide to research and how you conduct that research involve key ethical considerations.

These considerations work to

• protect the rights of research participants
• enhance research validity
• maintain scientific or academic integrity

Table of contents

Why do research ethics matter, getting ethical approval for your study, types of ethical issues, voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality, potential for harm, results communication, examples of ethical failures, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research ethics.

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe for research subjects.

You’ll balance pursuing important research objectives with using ethical research methods and procedures. It’s always necessary to prevent permanent or excessive harm to participants, whether inadvertent or not.

Defying research ethics will also lower the credibility of your research because it’s hard for others to trust your data if your methods are morally questionable.

Even if a research idea is valuable to society, it doesn’t justify violating the human rights or dignity of your study participants.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Before you start any study involving data collection with people, you’ll submit your research proposal to an institutional review board (IRB) .

An IRB is a committee that checks whether your research aims and research design are ethically acceptable and follow your institution’s code of conduct. They check that your research materials and procedures are up to code.

If successful, you’ll receive IRB approval, and you can begin collecting data according to the approved procedures. If you want to make any changes to your procedures or materials, you’ll need to submit a modification application to the IRB for approval.

If unsuccessful, you may be asked to re-submit with modifications or your research proposal may receive a rejection. To get IRB approval, it’s important to explicitly note how you’ll tackle each of the ethical issues that may arise in your study.

There are several ethical issues you should always pay attention to in your research design, and these issues can overlap with each other.

You’ll usually outline ways you’ll deal with each issue in your research proposal if you plan to collect data from participants.

Voluntary participation means that all research subjects are free to choose to participate without any pressure or coercion.

All participants are able to withdraw from, or leave, the study at any point without feeling an obligation to continue. Your participants don’t need to provide a reason for leaving the study.

It’s important to make it clear to participants that there are no negative consequences or repercussions to their refusal to participate. After all, they’re taking the time to help you in the research process , so you should respect their decisions without trying to change their minds.

Voluntary participation is an ethical principle protected by international law and many scientific codes of conduct.

Take special care to ensure there’s no pressure on participants when you’re working with vulnerable groups of people who may find it hard to stop the study even when they want to.

Informed consent refers to a situation in which all potential participants receive and understand all the information they need to decide whether they want to participate. This includes information about the study’s benefits, risks, funding, and institutional approval.

You make sure to provide all potential participants with all the relevant information about

• what the study is about
• the risks and benefits of taking part
• how long the study will take
• your supervisor’s contact information and the institution’s approval number

Usually, you’ll provide participants with a text for them to read and ask them if they have any questions. If they agree to participate, they can sign or initial the consent form. Note that this may not be sufficient for informed consent when you work with particularly vulnerable groups of people.

If you’re collecting data from people with low literacy, make sure to verbally explain the consent form to them before they agree to participate.

For participants with very limited English proficiency, you should always translate the study materials or work with an interpreter so they have all the information in their first language.

In research with children, you’ll often need informed permission for their participation from their parents or guardians. Although children cannot give informed consent, it’s best to also ask for their assent (agreement) to participate, depending on their age and maturity level.

Anonymity means that you don’t know who the participants are and you can’t link any individual participant to their data.

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, and videos.

In many cases, it may be impossible to truly anonymize data collection . For example, data collected in person or by phone cannot be considered fully anonymous because some personal identifiers (demographic information or phone numbers) are impossible to hide.

You’ll also need to collect some identifying information if you give your participants the option to withdraw their data at a later stage.

Data pseudonymization is an alternative method where you replace identifying information about participants with pseudonymous, or fake, identifiers. The data can still be linked to participants but it’s harder to do so because you separate personal information from the study data.

Confidentiality means that you know who the participants are, but you remove all identifying information from your report.

All participants have a right to privacy, so you should protect their personal data for as long as you store or use it. Even when you can’t collect data anonymously, you should secure confidentiality whenever you can.

Some research designs aren’t conducive to confidentiality, but it’s important to make all attempts and inform participants of the risks involved.

As a researcher, you have to consider all possible sources of harm to participants. Harm can come in many different forms.

• Psychological harm: Sensitive questions or tasks may trigger negative emotions such as shame or anxiety.
• Social harm: Participation can involve social risks, public embarrassment, or stigma.
• Physical harm: Pain or injury can result from the study procedures.
• Legal harm: Reporting sensitive data could lead to legal risks or a breach of privacy.

It’s best to consider every possible source of harm in your study as well as concrete ways to mitigate them. Involve your supervisor to discuss steps for harm reduction.

Make sure to disclose all possible risks of harm to participants before the study to get informed consent. If there is a risk of harm, prepare to provide participants with resources or counseling or medical services if needed.

Some of these questions may bring up negative emotions, so you inform participants about the sensitive nature of the survey and assure them that their responses will be confidential.

The way you communicate your research results can sometimes involve ethical issues. Good science communication is honest, reliable, and credible. It’s best to make your results as transparent as possible.

Take steps to actively avoid plagiarism and research misconduct wherever possible.

Plagiarism means submitting others’ works as your own. Although it can be unintentional, copying someone else’s work without proper credit amounts to stealing. It’s an ethical problem in research communication because you may benefit by harming other researchers.

Self-plagiarism is when you republish or re-submit parts of your own papers or reports without properly citing your original work.

This is problematic because you may benefit from presenting your ideas as new and original even though they’ve already been published elsewhere in the past. You may also be infringing on your previous publisher’s copyright, violating an ethical code, or wasting time and resources by doing so.

In extreme cases of self-plagiarism, entire datasets or papers are sometimes duplicated. These are major ethical violations because they can skew research findings if taken as original data.

You notice that two published studies have similar characteristics even though they are from different years. Their sample sizes, locations, treatments, and results are highly similar, and the studies share one author in common.

Research misconduct

Research misconduct means making up or falsifying data, manipulating data analyses, or misrepresenting results in research reports. It’s a form of academic fraud.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement about data analyses.

Research misconduct is a serious ethical issue because it can undermine academic integrity and institutional credibility. It leads to a waste of funding and resources that could have been used for alternative research.

Later investigations revealed that they fabricated and manipulated their data to show a nonexistent link between vaccines and autism. Wakefield also neglected to disclose important conflicts of interest, and his medical license was taken away.

This fraudulent work sparked vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers. The rate of MMR vaccinations in children fell sharply, and measles outbreaks became more common due to a lack of herd immunity.

Research scandals with ethical failures are littered throughout history, but some took place not that long ago.

Some scientists in positions of power have historically mistreated or even abused research participants to investigate research problems at any cost. These participants were prisoners, under their care, or otherwise trusted them to treat them with dignity.

To demonstrate the importance of research ethics, we’ll briefly review two research studies that violated human rights in modern history.

These experiments were inhumane and resulted in trauma, permanent disabilities, or death in many cases.

After some Nazi doctors were put on trial for their crimes, the Nuremberg Code of research ethics for human experimentation was developed in 1947 to establish a new standard for human experimentation in medical research.

In reality, the actual goal was to study the effects of the disease when left untreated, and the researchers never informed participants about their diagnoses or the research aims.

Although participants experienced severe health problems, including blindness and other complications, the researchers only pretended to provide medical care.

When treatment became possible in 1943, 11 years after the study began, none of the participants were offered it, despite their health conditions and high risk of death.

Ethical failures like these resulted in severe harm to participants, wasted resources, and lower trust in science and scientists. This is why all research institutions have strict ethical guidelines for performing research.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles
• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Thematic analysis
• Cohort study
• Peer review
• Ethnography

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Conformity bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Availability heuristic
• Attrition bias
• Social desirability bias

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. These principles include voluntary participation, informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, potential for harm, and results communication.

Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from others .

These considerations protect the rights of research participants, enhance research validity , and maintain scientific integrity.

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe.

Anonymity means you don’t know who the participants are, while confidentiality means you know who they are but remove identifying information from your research report. Both are important ethical considerations .

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, or videos.

You can keep data confidential by using aggregate information in your research report, so that you only refer to groups of participants rather than individuals.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement but a serious ethical failure.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bhandari, P. (2024, May 09). Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved September 10, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/research-ethics/

Is this article helpful?

Pritha Bhandari

Other students also liked, data collection | definition, methods & examples, what is self-plagiarism | definition & how to avoid it, how to avoid plagiarism | tips on citing sources, get unlimited documents corrected.

✔ Free APA citation check included ✔ Unlimited document corrections ✔ Specialized in correcting academic texts

Writing a Critical Reflective Journal

• First Online: 04 May 2022

Cite this chapter

• Susan J. Deeley 2  

374 Accesses

This chapter examines the nature of journal writing in the context of service-learning. Problematic issues and dilemmas are scrutinised in addition to important ethical concerns and how they might be addressed. Approaches to journal writing are scrutinised, with the ultimate view that feminist critical autoethnography is a most appropriate genre in this context. With a focus on action, it aligns with service-learning as feminist critical pedagogy and encapsulates the processes and production of a critically reflective service-learning journal. The final part of this chapter provides a Prelude to the feminist critical autoethnographical Journal that nestles between Chaps. 3 and 4 . The aim of this section of the chapter is to prepare the reader for the next encounter in this literary matryoshka.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

• Get 10 units per month
• Download Article/Chapter or eBook
• 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
• Cancel anytime
• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Anderson, L. (2006) ‘Analytic Autoethnography’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35(4): 373-395.

Google Scholar  

Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Goldberger, N.R., Tarule, J.M. (1986) Women’s Ways of Knowing New York: Basic Books.

Benford, C. (2010) ‘“Listen to my tale”: Multilevel Structure, Narrative Sense Making, and the Inassimilable in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein ’, Narrative 18(3): 324-346.

Bennett, A. (2007) Talking Heads London: BBC Books, Ebury Publishing.

Berlatsky, E. (2009) ‘Lost in the Gutter: Within and Between Frames in Narrative and Narrative Theory’, Narrative 17(2): 162-187.

Bochner, A.P. (1997) ‘It’s About Time: Narrative and the Divided Self’, Qualitative Inquiry 3(4): 418-438.

Bochner, A.P. (2001) ‘Narrative’s Virtues’, Qualitative Inquiry 7(2): 131-157.

Bochner, A.P. and Ellis, C. (2016) Evocative Autoethnography London: Routledge.

Booker, C. (2004) The Seven Basic Plots. Why we tell stories London: Continuum.

Boud, D., Keogh, R., and Walker, D. (1985) Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning London: Routledge.

Bringle, R.G. and Hatcher, J.A. (1996) ‘Implementing Service Learning in Higher Education’, Journal of Higher Education 67(2): 221-239.

Brockbank, A. and McGill, I. (2007) Facilitating Reflective Learning in Higher Education Maidenhead: Open University Press, Second Edition.

Brookfield, S.D. (1987) Developing Critical Thinkers Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Bruner, J. (1987) ‘Life as Narrative’, Social Research Spring 54(1): 11-32.

Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The Narrative Construction of Reality’, Critical Inquiry Autumn 18(1): 1-21.

Campbell, J. (1993) The Hero with a Thousand Faces London: Fontana.

Chisholm, L.A. (2000) Charting a Hero’s Journey New York: International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership.

Cipolle, S.B. (2010) Service-Learning and Social Justice Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Clough, P.T. (2000) ‘Comments on Setting Criteria for Experimental Writing’, Qualitative Inquiry 6(2): 278-291.

Coffey, A (1999) The Ethnographic Self London: Sage.

Collins, P. (2010) ‘The Ethnographic Self as Resource?’ in Collins, P. and A. Gallinat (eds) The Ethnographic Self as Resource New York: Berghahn Books pp. 228-245.

Cowan, J. (2014) ‘Noteworthy matters for attention in reflective journal writing’, Active Learning in Higher Education 15(1): 53-64.

Cranton, P. (2006) Understanding and Promoting Transformative Learning San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Crème, P. (2003) ‘Why Can’t We Allow Students to be More Creative?’, Teaching in Higher Education 8(2): 273-277.

Crème, P. (2005) ‘Should Student Learning Journals be Assessed?’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 30(3): 287-296.

Crites, S. (1971) ‘The Narrative Quality of Experience’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 39(3): 291-311.

Davies, A. (2020) Just Ignore Him London: Little, Brown.

Davis, D.S. (1991) ‘Rich Cases. The Ethics of Rich Description’, Hastings Center Report 21(4): 12-17.

Daynes, S. and Williams, T. (2018) On Ethnography Cambridge: Polity Press.

Deeley, S.J. (2010) ‘Service-learning: Thinking outside the box’, Active Learning in Higher Education 11(1): 43-53.

Deeley, S.J. (2015) Critical Perspectives on Service-Learning in Higher Education Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Denshire, S. (2014) ‘On auto-ethnography’, Current Sociology Review 62(6): 831-850.

Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education New York: Macmillan.

Dewey, J. (1938) Experience and Education New York: Macmillan.

Ellis, C. (1999) ‘Heartfelt Autoethnography’, Qualitative Health Research 9(5): 669-683.

Ellis, C. (2002) ‘Being real: moving inward toward social change’, Qualitative Studies in Education 15(4): 399-406.

Ellis, C., Adams, T.E., and Bochner, A.P. (2011) ‘Autoethnography: An Overview’, Historical Social Research 36(4): 273-290.

Ettorre, E. (2017) Autoethnography as Feminist Method London: Routledge.

Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the Oppressed London: Penguin.

Frow, J. (1982) ‘The Literary Frame’, The Journal of Aesthetic Education Summer, 16(2): 25-30.

Grauerholz, E. and Copenhaver, S. (1994) ‘When the personal becomes problematic: the ethics of using experiential teaching methods, Teaching Sociology 22(4): 319-327.

Grimm, J. and W Grimm. (1812/1948) Grimm’s Fairy Tales London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Hayano, D.M. (1979) ‘Auto-Ethnography: Paradigms, Problems, and Prospects’, Human Organization 38(1): 99-104.

Heidegger, M. (2011) Basic Writings Krell, D.F. (Ed.) London: Routledge.

Herman, J. (2015) Trauma and Recovery New York: Basic Books.

Holt, N.L. (2003) ‘Representation, Legitimation, and Autoethnography: An Autoethnographic Writing Story’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 2(1): 18-28.

hooks, b. (1989) Talking Back. thinking feminist, thinking black London: Sheba Feminist Publishers.

Jahn, M. (1997) ‘Frames, Preferences, and the Reading of Third-Person Narratives: Towards a Cognitive Narratology’, Poetics Today Winter, 18(4): 441-468.

Johnson, R.R. (2003) ‘Autobiography and Transformative Learning’ Journal of Transformative Education 1(3): 227-244.

Kermode, F. (1980) ‘Secrets and Narrative Sequence’, Critical Inquiry Autumn, 7(1): 83-101.

King, P.M. (2000) ‘Learning to Make Reflective Judgments’, in New Directions for Teaching and Learning 82: 15-26.

Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Langellier, K.M. (1989) ‘Personal Narratives: Perspectives on Theory and Research’, Text and Performance Quarterly 9(4): 243-276. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10462938909365938 .

Mezirow, J. (1990) ‘How Critical Reflection Triggers Transformative Learning, in Mezirow, J. and Associates (eds) Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Mezirow, J. (1991) Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Mitchell, W.J.T. (1980) ‘On Narrative’ Critical Inquiry Autumn, 7(1): 1-4.

Moon, J.A. (2006) Learning Journals London: Routledge 2 nd Edition.

Morse, J.M. (2002) ‘Writing My Own Experience…’ Qualitative Health Research 12(9):1159-1160.

Muncey, T. (2005) ‘Doing autoethnography’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 4(1): 69-86.

Nelles, W. (2020) Frameworks: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narrative Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Ochs, E. and Capps, L. (1996) ‘Narrating the Self’, Annual Review of Anthropology 25: 19-43.

Olson, D.R. (1990) ‘Thinking About Narrative’, in Britton, B.K. and A.D. Pellegrini (eds) Narrative Thought and Narrative Language Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 99-111.

Olson, L.N. (2004) ‘The Role of Voice in the (Re)Construction of a Battered Woman’s Identity: An Autoethnography of One Woman’s Experiences of Abuse’, Women’s Studies in Communication 27(1): 1-33.

Palmer, P.J. (1998) The Courage to Teach San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Paxson, J.J. (2001) ‘Revisiting the Deconstruction of Narratology: Master Tropes of Narrative Embedding and Symmetry’, Style Spring, 35(1): 126-187.

Polletta, F. (2009) ‘How to Tell a New Story About Battering’, Violence Against Women 15(12): 1490-1508.

Richardson, L. (2000) ‘New Writing Practices in Qualitative Research’, Sociology of Sport Journal 17: 5-20.

Rolfe, G. (1997) ‘Writing ourselves: creating knowledge in a postmodern world’, Nurse Education Today 17: 442-448.

Roth, W-M., (ed) (2005) Auto/Biography and Auto/Ethnography: Praxis of Research Method. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Schick, T.W. Jr., (1982) ‘Can Fictional Literature Communicate Knowledge?’ The Journal of Aesthetic Education Summer, 16(2): 31-39.

Schön, D.A. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Sparkes, A.C. (2000) ‘Autoethnography and Narratives of Self: Reflections on Criteria in Action’, Sociology of Sport Journal 17: 21-43.

Spry, T. (2001) ‘Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis’, Qualitative Inquiry 7(6): 706-732.

Stivers (1993) ‘Reflections on the Role of Personal Narrative in Social Science’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 18(2): 408-425.

Thomas, J. (1993) Doing Critical Ethnography London: Sage.

Tolich, M. (2010) ‘A Critique of Current Practice: Ten Foundational Guidelines for Autoethnographers’, Qualitative Health Research 20(12): 1599-1610.

Tripp, D. (1993) Critical Incidents in Teaching London: Routledge.

Turner, J. (1997–1998) ‘Turns of Phrase and Routes to Learning: The Journey Metaphor in Educational Culture’, Intercultural Communication Studies VII(2): 23-35.

Wall, S. (2006) ‘An Autoethnography on Learning About Autoethnography’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 5(2): 146-160.

Wall, S. (2008) ‘Easier Said than Done: Writing an Autoethnography’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 7(1): 38-53.

Walsh, R. (1997) ‘Who is the Narrator?’, Poetics Today Winter, 18(4): 495-513.

White, H. (1980) ‘The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality’, Critical Inquiry Autumn, 7(1): 5-27.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

Susan J. Deeley

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susan J. Deeley .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Deeley, S.J. (2022). Writing a Critical Reflective Journal. In: Assessment and Service-Learning in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94440-7_3

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94440-7_3

Published : 04 May 2022

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-94439-1

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-94440-7

eBook Packages : Education Education (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

• Deakin Library
• Learning and Teaching

Critical reflection for assessments and practice

• Critical reflection writing

Critical reflection for assessments and practice: Critical reflection writing

• Reflective practice
• Critical reflection
• How to reflect
• Recount and reflect

Critically reflective language and writing

"Our language is the reflection of ourselves..."

Mahatma Ghandi -  Cries of Never  (1916)

Our language is part of our identity. How we speak or write or paint or move when communicating shapes our sense of self and our presence in this world.  Critical reflection uses particular language and writing styles.

What is reflective writing? 

Critical reflection uses particular language and writing styles, often linked to your study area. For example, critical reflection in Health disciplines is linked to evidence-based practice and therefore uses a combination of clinical language and first-hand clinician perspective. In contrast, critical reflective writing for a dance student may have technical terms and creative language. Regardless of area, reflective writing at uni needs you to link your reflection to theories. This means that there is a formal tone to reflective writing assessments.    

What does critical reflective writing include?

Critical reflective writing is not just a summary or description of an event or something that you have observed. Description is needed for context in a critical reflection but the core of good reflective writing is exploring the significance of events (the ‘why’ and ‘how’) by providing analysis and insights into your thinking.  

In critical reflective writing you need to:

This helps you to develop new insights and perspectives which can inform your future practice. 

Language of reflective writing

The language used in reflective writing allows you to discuss your personal experiences, feelings and ideas. It’s fine to refer to yourself and use “I”, “my” and “me”. 

You can also use action verbs when writing about your feelings and opinions, for example, “I felt…”, “I think…”, “I realise…”. 

Remember you also need to include theory to support what you are saying. Take a look at the  language of reflective writing  for more support in this area. 

What? So What? Now What? Model 

Just as there are models to help you critically reflect on your actions, thoughts and feelings, there are also models to help you write critical reflections. 

The 'What? So What? Now What?' model guides your own reflections and learning from events that are significant for you. It gives you prompts to help you identify and discuss the different components of critical reflective writing. 

Click on the plus symbols (+)  below to see what is discussed in each section. 

Text version

Activity overview

This interactive hotspot activity outlines the sections of the 'What? So What? Now What? model. The hotspots are displayed as plus (+) icons that can be clicked to reveal the sections, as follows

Section 1: What?

A brief description of the incident/experience: who, what, why, when, where.

Section 2: So What?

This is the sense-making section where you discuss the significance, your position, understanding, feelings and relate to literature/theories.

Section 3: Now What?

This section makes connections from the experience to inform future actions. What you would do differently or the same. Also relates to literature/theories.

What? So What? Now What? template

To help you put this model into practice for your own context, download the template provided below to use for assessments. 

• What? So What? Now What? template

Essay versus critical reflection essay

At uni a common form of critical reflection writing is the critical reflection essay. For a quick recap on the major differences, look at this table.

Try to express your reactions, feelings, attitudes and views in an open and honest way. Avoid writing what you think others ‘want to hear’.

Remember that a critical reflection should describe, analyse and evaluate? Use this checklist to shape up a draft critical reflection based on a recent experience. Don’t forget to use the SWOT model to help prompt your writing

• A brief description of the event or context
• What you noticed
• What you were thinking and feeling
• Why this learning is significant to you
• What you have learnt from this experience
• How this will inform future practice.
• << Previous: How to reflect
• Next: Recount and reflect >>
• Last Updated: Jun 28, 2024 4:06 PM
• URL: https://deakin.libguides.com/critical-reflection-guide