Guideline on reflective writing in practicum

Reflection can help students to identify one-self’s values, attitudes, behaviors and improve their skills in
problem solving, decision making, critical thinking and organization. It can also enhance future practice by
helping students to integrate knowledge in practice to meet client’s needs. In practicum, students are
required to perform reflective writing to develop their skills and knowledge in reflective practice.
To structure a reflective writing in practicum, Gibbs’ reflective cycle is adopted to guide your reflective
writing.

Gibbs’(1988) reflective cycle

Gibbs’ reflective cycle was created by Professor Graham Gibbs and firstly appeared on the book Learning
by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods (Gibbs, 1988). There are six stages in this reflective
cycle:

Feelings
Description What were your
What happened? thinking and
feeling?

Action Plan
Evaluation
If it arose again, what
would you do? What was good and bad
about the experience?

Analysis
Conclusion
What sense can you
What else could you
make of the
have done?
situation?

Stage 1. Description
Describe a most significant incident or an event which you encountered in your practicum.
 What happened?
 Who were involved in the incident / event?

Stage 2. Feelings
Discuss your feelings and thoughts about the incident / event.
 How did you feel at the time?
 What did you think at the time?
 What did you think about the incident / event afterwards?
Stage 3. Evaluation
Evaluate your and other’s immediate reaction to the incident / event.
 How did you react to the situation?
 How did other people react?
 What was good and what was bad about the experience?
 Was the situation resolved afterwards? Why or Why not?

Stage 4. Analysis
Analyze what might have helped the incident / event. Examine the incident / event through the integration of
your experience and available evidence.
 Any relevant information in the incident / event which could be found in the literature?
 How can you integrate the evidence into practice?

Stage 5. Conclusion
Conclude if you can improve future practice.
 What did you learn from the experience?
 How can you do better in the future?
 How can you avoid negative outcome in the future?

Stage 6. Action plan

Sum up anything you can do to improve the practice in the future.
 What are the recommendations from your Clinical Supervisor or HCIs or Resource Person?
 How can you equip yourself to cope with a similar situation in the future?
 What can you do to improve the practice in the future practice?

Word Count
500 – 1000 words

Referencing
All referencing should be in APA format (7th Edition)

Submission
Students are required to submit assignment to Blackboard and TURNITIN on or before the deadline. If
students fail to submit written assignment by the designated deadline, every 10 percent of final marks of the
assignment will be deducted for each calendar day. A student failing this assessment is regarded as failing
the corresponding practicum.
 References
Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford Polytechnics.

Bibliography:
Beam, R.J., O’Brien, R.A. & Neal, M. (2010). Reflective practice enhances public health nurse
implementation of nurse-family partnership. Public Health Nursing, 27(2), 131-139.

Bostock-Cox, B. (2015). Making sense of reflective practice. Practice Nurse, 45(10): 20-23.

Enuku, C. A. &; Evawoma-Enuku, U. (2015). Importance of reflective practice in nursing education.

West African Journal of Nursing, 26(1): 52-59.

Kinsella, E.A. (2010). Professional knowledge and the epistemology of reflective practice. Nursing
Philosophy, 11(1), 3-14.

Lay, S., & McGuire, L. (2010). Building a lens for critical reflection and reflexivity in social working
education. Social Work education, 29(5), 539-550.
 Assessment rubric for reflective journal
PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
(Observable descriptors indicating extent to which a criterion is met.)
Excellent (84-100) Proficient (67-83) Average (50-66) Poor ( ≤49)
Identificati Thoroughly expresses Clearly expresses via Minimally Unable to express
on of one- via personal analysis and personal analysis and expressed one’s one’s own
self’s supporting documents supporting documents own viewpoints viewpoints and/or
values, one’s own viewpoints one’s own viewpoints and/or assumptions
attitudes, and/or assumptions and and/or assumptions assumptions
and can expand on that
behaviours knowledge
(30%)
Association Thoroughly describes Clearly describes via Minimally Unable to
s between via personal analysis and personal analysis and describes the cause describe the
values, supporting documents supporting documents and relationship cause and
attitudes, the cause and effect the cause and effect between individual relationship
and relationship between relationship between values, attitudes, between
behaviours individual values, individual values, and behaviour; no individual values,
(30%) attitudes, and behaviour; attitudes, and evidence of using attitudes, and
critical thinking skills behaviour; multiple behaviour
demonstrated in the demonstrating perspectives in
writing attempt to analyse the analyzing the
issues from a number issues
of different
perspectives
Knowledge Demonstrating good Showing satisfactory Includes Only includes
integration ability to proficiently ability to relate description of mere descriptions
(30%) and creatively integrate acquired knowledge events, and a little of theoretical
acquired knowledge and to previous further knowledge; no
concepts into different experiences consideration reflection nor
issues from wide range behind the events integration is
of perspectives using a relatively demonstrated
descriptive style of beyond the
language descriptions
Reference Adequate/correct APA Adequate/few errors Inadequate/ No reference at
(10%) format; smooth in APA format; numerous errors in all
embedding generally smooth APA format;
embedding ineffective
embedding