Practical concerns of educators assessing reflections of physiotherapy students

Abstract

Background: Reflection has become an accepted element of physiotherapy education. Reflection is a cognitive, emotional, and embodied activity that remains largely invisible as individuals undertake their professional work. The use of reflection has been related to a number of positive benefits for practitioners such as to develop their capacity for self-assessment and critique, to challenge their existing knowledge base, to engage in lifelong learning, to make sense of their experiences, and to improve decision making.Objectives: Although there is an extensive debate in the wider reflection literature about assessing reflection, this has yet to be applied to physiotherapy and developed as a discourse held by the members of the profession.Major findings: The current body of physiotherapy literature does not offer educators realistic tools to deal with the practical concerns and hands-on educational decisions they face when assessing reflection. The findings from physiotherapy research investigating how reflection is practiced and assessed in physiotherapy implies a need to engage in a dialogue as a profession about teaching and assessing reflective practice.Conclusion: This paper concludes that the assessment of reflection is complex and difficult and explains the practical concerns of educators. Physiotherapy educators are faced with rethinking how reflection is assessed to carefully consider the intentions of reflection in their assessment design and the impact of assessment on how reflection is learnt and practiced.