Do tools of reflective engagement such as daily logs and peer groups help to facilitate professionals to engage in reflective practice? One of the central preoccupations in contemporary international literature and practice in professions such as teaching, social work and youth development is the perceived assault on practitioners’ identity by managerialist and technicist approaches to professional autonomy. Winter et al (1999) suggest that reflective practice may provide a means of redressing the devaluation, deskilling and alienation now suffered by practitioners in these professions. This paper describes an action research project carried out by the authors in conjunction with a group of social work practice teachers to incorporate reflective tools into the practitioners’ continuing professional development in peer groups. The authors have written elsewhere (Dempsey et al 2001, Halton et al. 2007) about their work over a number of years in constructing a systematized approach to reflective teaching and learning on the Master’s in Social Work course at UCC. They have researched experiences of reflective engagement pre and post qualification, described in the forthcoming International Handbook of Reflective Inquiry. (Lyons, 2009) The aim of the action research project described in this paper was to extend the approach to practitioners and to track their experiences of using reflective tools. The conceptual underpinnings of the authors’ approach include critical hermeneutics, originally developed by European philosophers such as Gadamer (1962) and adapted for application to current educational practice by Nakkula and Ravitch (1998). This approach prompted the authors to engage participants in a hermeneutic circle of projection-action-reflection and to chart the outcomes. The authors were also influenced by the work of Schon who has written about learning for professionals coming about primarily through reflection on action, moving to reflection in action (1983). Other influences include Dewey’s ideas about the nature of reflection (1933); Lyons, writing on reflective inquiry in teacher education through the construction of portfolios; and Kolb’s cycle of how to scaffold systematic learning from experience.

This was an action research study. The study was located in a large hospital setting. Twenty-one participants engaged with the research process. Data was collected from nine focus groups over a twelve month period. Findings track the development of practice teachers’ understandings of reflection.

The research found that participants engagement with the tools of reflective learning in peer groups led to increased awareness and mindfulness (as described by Langer 1989) in practice. The research identified a number of important issues for professionals working in a large interdisciplinary hospital setting: an increased consciousness of actions, increased consciousness of feelings in particular practice situations, increased sense of making choices, therefore agency as a practitioner and a more developed knowledge and understanding of ‘one’s own style’ as a practitioner The authors propose that the findings have international applicability. The study provides useful information for practitioners across a range of professions. Some of the challenges of continuing professional development through peer learning group processes are also discussed.