Deconstructing critical reflection in social work and business: Negotiating emotions and opinions in reflective writing

Critical reflection is considered a highly valued graduate attribute in higher education. Assignments that assess critical reflection skills often require students to focus on subjective and personal experiences, attitudes and dispositions. In addition to being typically less valued than objective a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of English for academic purposes 2021-01, Vol.49, p.100931, Article 100931
Main Authors: Szenes, Eszter, Tilakaratna, Namala
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appraisal
Business
Business communication
Creativity
Critical reflection
Ethics
Higher Education
Negotiation
Reflective practice
Social work
Systemic functional linguistics
Writing
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Critical reflection is considered a highly valued graduate attribute in higher education. Assignments that assess critical reflection skills often require students to focus on subjective and personal experiences, attitudes and dispositions. In addition to being typically less valued than objective and theoretical knowledge, reflective writing is often viewed as unstructured and ‘creative’, therefore challenging to teach and learn. This paper makes visible the means by which high-achieving students in social work and business successfully engage with subjective meanings in reflective writing. Drawing on the Appraisal framework from Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper shows how successful students move from common sense understanding of problematic situations to demonstrating discplinary knowledge and values in their fields of study. The paper concludes with consolidating the findings to make visible successful critical reflection practices as well as associated ethical concerns in order to advance equitable outcomes in higher education.
ISSN:1475-1585
1878-1497
DOI:10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100931