The purpose of this paper is to address the need for new educational methods that better prepare individuals to cope with the uncertainties of false and controlling information and to reject them in the process of building new ideas and imaginations. Most importantly, this paper offers a means for measuring a person's maturity in abstract thinking using the Fantasy Arc. The Fantasy Arc is organized around five progressive stages: (1) Indoctrinated Knowledge, (2) Acknowledging Existence of Multiplicity, (3) Acceptance of Complexity, (4) Stable Examination and Applications, and (5) Abstracts of New Possibilities. The Fantasy Arc is designed to help adults become more reflective and use AI to envision new ideas and imaginations that will recreate social realities. The use of reflection, or Reflection-Before-Action, is introduced as a critical skill for attaining more advanced stages of abstract thought. This paper will show why individuals must reach Stage 5, Abstracts of New Possibilities on the Fantasy Arc, to be functionally capable of generating new ideas of imaginations.
Considering rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the growing demand for the convergence of disciplinary knowledge, ideas, and expertise, a paradigm shift toward context-based learning is necessary. This paper introduces three key principles for transitioning from content-driven to context-driven learning-dispositions, discernment, and productive inquiry-and curriculum design that supports this learning. Through an iterative cycle of discernment, prompt, prototype, and iteration within real-world challenge spaces, students cultivate their unique dispositions while practicing discernment and productive inquiry as tools for learning. Drawing on a case study from the University of Southern California's Iovine and Young Academy, a school that engages students in chellanges at the intersections of technology, design, and business, we illustrate how the Challenge-Based Reflective Learning (CBRL) framework and its related practices equip learners to navigate complex sociotechnical entanglements and develop reflective practice essential in the age of AI. Emphaszing associative learning over progressive learning, the framework offers practical ways in which CBRL phases and practices can be incorporated into higher education curricula and courses. We discuss the role of humanities education across disciplines as a vital domain for interrogating ethical, social, and cultural dimensions of emerging challenges of the future.
Reflective practice enhances critical thinking, resilience, and healthcare performance, but its measurement remains challenging. This first study used the RPQ to assess and track reflective capacity development in UK physiotherapy students. An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted with ethical approval, of three BSc physiotherapy cohorts at the University of Liverpool. The 40-item RPQ, covering 10 subscales (4 core and 6 broader constructs), was administered biannually via anonymous online surveys. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, and radar charts to visualise reflective capacity trends. Among 640 participants, most RPQ subscale scores exceeded 4/6, with improvements in core skills. However, reflecting with others, desire for improvement, and uncertainty showed no significant change. Overall reflective capacity rose from 4.13 to 4.61, though not statistically significant. Physiotherapy students begin with strong reflective capacity and improve further through structured learning and clinical experience. Core reflective skills showed significant growth, while confidence, uncertainty, and stress need targeted support. Their motivation and communication strengths highlight the value of collaborative, learner-centred education. This study shows physiotherapy students develop strong reflective capacity through structured learning, though confidence and uncertainty remain areas for improvement. The findings support embedding reflective practice in physiotherapy education.
Reflection is vital for learning, helping students connect content to their careers, education, and lives. Yet, engagement with reflection across curricula varies, and research on students' confidence and experiences with formal and informal reflective activities - especially when explicitly taught - is limited. This study investigates undergraduate students' perceptions, knowledge, and preparedness before and after a reflection intervention, where reflective skills were explicitly taught. Using established survey instruments, 411 students across 10 disciplines completed pre- and post-intervention surveys. Findings indicate that although students reported prior exposure to reflection within the curriculum, explicit instruction in reflective purpose and techniques significantly enhanced their confidence and experience (p < .001, alpha = 0.05) with reflective practice. The study concludes with recommendations for educators on the importance of explicitly integrating reflection into curriculum design to support deeper and more intentional learning.
Reflective practices (RPs) are widely acknowledged for cultivating both cognitive and metacognitive development in educational contexts. However, very limited empirical research has investigated the impact of integrating metacognitive strategies (MCS) and RPs on writing achievement in English as a third language (L3) contexts like Morocco. This mixed-methods study, using an explanatory sequential design, examined the combined effect of MCS and RPs instruction on enhancing writing achievement at a public university. The participants were 85 Moroccan English majors, who were assigned to an experimental group (EG, n = 45) and a control group (CG, n = 40). An argumentative writing test was used to assess students' writing performance pre- and post-intervention, while focus group discussions and self-reflective reports were conducted to identify participants' writing difficulties and their reflection on the strategy-based instruction. Quantitative data was analyzed using Mixed-ANOVA tests, while the focus group discussions and reflective reports were analyzed thematically. The results revealed that the EG obtained higher writing scores than the CG. Additionally, findings revealed that the EG students held positive perceptions of the training, demonstrated increased self-reflection, and showed improved writing confidence and proficiency. The findings highlight the potential of reflective processes to enhance both linguistic and reflective outcomes in EFL writing.
Exploring cognitive processes and their influence upon the enhancement of higher-order thinking skills has yielded significant insights into how individuals learn, process, and utilise information. The current study's aim is to investigate the relationship between self-efficacy and critical thinking through the mediating roles of metacognitive awareness and reflective thinking. The academic self-efficacy scale, the critical thinking scale, the metacognitive awareness inventory, and the reflective thinking scale were administered to a total of 246 university students as data collection tools. The correlation analysis found that all the variables are positively related to each other, and the regression analysis showed that self-efficacy, metacognitive awareness, and reflective thinking can significantly predict critical thinking. Examining how metacognitive awareness and reflective thinking could affect the link between self-efficacy and critical thinking using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) revealed that both metacognitive awareness and reflective thinking were important as partial mediators, which helped boost the positive impact of self-efficacy on improving critical thinking skills. Implications and recommendations are further discussed.
The challenge of planning effective professional development (PD) for language teachers is particularly pronounced in complex linguistic, cultural, and institutional settings. This narrative inquiry investigates a seven-month synergistic PD model involving 20 Iranian EFL teachers from private high schools. The seven-month model followed bi-weekly cycles: (1) classroom teaching + individual journaling; (2) 90-minute face-to-face CoP dialogue; (3) asynchronous WhatsApp/Telegram peer discussion; (4) independent ChatGPT engagement using CoP-generated prompts, with critical evaluation logged. This cyclical sequence - repeated 14 times - forced interdependence across modalities. Data from interviews, reflective essays, AI logs, and digital discussions were analyzed using MAXQDA. Six main themes emerged. First, relational trust and psychological safety were foundational prerequisites for honest dialogue and professional risk-taking. Second, ICT platforms functioned as 'connective tissue' - supporting continuous, asynchronous reflective dialogue across time and space and transforming reflection from an isolated event into a continuous collective process. Third, AI played a dual, experience-contingent role: it served as scaffolding for novice teachers, who valued its immediate instructional guidance and reduced isolation (coded 56 times), and as disruptor for experienced teachers, who critically questioned its decontextualized, often Western-centric outputs and found their entrenched assumptions challenged (coded 42 times). Fourth, teachers experienced professional identity renewal - reporting increased confidence, agency, and resilience. Fifth, systemic contextual constraints persisted, comprising institutional ambivalence, policy-practice gaps, and digital inequities. Sixth, teachers vigorously engaged in the cultural translation of technology, adapting AI-produced content to align with local curricula and collectivist norms, and developed informal community workarounds.
While many studies investigated the importance of reflective practice and grit as separate constructs on teacher development and well-being, the relationship between the two concepts remains largely understudied. Using a series of regressions, the present study analyzed quantitative data collected with the validated English Language Teacher Reflective Inventory and the Teacher L2 Grit Scale from 101 Moroccan EFL teachers. The results revealed that reflective practice is a statistically positive predictor of grit. Also, it was found that there is a strong positive relationship between reflective practice and the 'perseverance of effort' component of grit, but not the 'consistency of interest' component. Further, the results of a multiple linear regression revealed that neither gender nor teaching experience affects the relationship between reflective practice and grit. The results suggest that fostering reflective practice among Moroccan EFL teachers can enhance their resilience, well-being, and commitment to their careers. Implications for educational authorities, individual teachers, and suggestions for future research are provided.
This study investigates the dynamics of implementing Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) competencies in K-12 educators' practices following clinical simulations designed for teacher training. Utilising a mixed methods approach, the research explores factors that facilitate or hinder the application of SEL. The qualitative part included 14 in-depth interviews; the quantitative part involved 146 pre-service and 70 in-service educators engaged in simulation workshops. The findings highlight six key facets that influence SEL competency enactment: pre-simulation attitudes, immersive experiences, sense of security, collaborative reflections, self-awareness development, and repeated practice. Quantitative analysis reveals that sense of security and immersion significantly correlate with overall SEL competencies, while self-awareness primarily impacts cognitive SEL aspects. The study highlights the need to adhere to strict standards in integrating these factors into simulation design to enhance the enactment of SEL competencies.
This paper provides an exploration of the Johari Window Model, and its alignment with 'evidence' which is scrutinised and utilised for reflection and training educators within higher education settings. In this paper, the nature of evidence is explored through the lens of the Johari Window Model, which enables us as a community of educators to ascertain knowledge (as evidence) both known and unknown by others and ourselves. In literature, the concept of evidence (as an artefact) is often under-reported in terms of its significance, relationship to truth and impact. Collecting and making sense of evidence is often an important pre-requisite for academic practice, especially as it serves as a means of recognition for attaining accredited qualifications. Due to the need to complete these qualifications in a timely manner, we often fail to probe the accompanying evidence deeply enough, nor truly appraise it and query what it reveals about our practice and our private selves. The 'window' acts as a lens through which we can view various forms of evidence used in faculty development, with a view to encouraging others to make better use of evidence to honestly and openly reflect on their taught practice.
Although teachers experience a wide range of emotions in their daily work, they do not often have structured, facilitated opportunities to engage in critical reflection on their own emotional experiences. Even rarer are opportunities for teachers to unpack the role of their emotions in their work in community with other teachers. In this study, we provide a rationale for the importance of critical reflective spaces, then provide pilot data regarding the impact of one such space: a psychodynamic coaching support group. We find that participating in a teacher support group changed teachers' emotional states, increased their emotional awareness and literacy, helped them develop refined strategies for navigating emotionally intense interpersonal interactions, and strengthened their collegial support networks.
Reflective practice emerged as a response to the limitations of technical rationality and is said to enable students to develop a form of objective professional knowledge grounded in experience and ambiguity. An emerging assumption is that as reflective practice is expressive, emotionally rich, and individualised, it is not easily replicable by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). However, as GenAI becomes increasingly sophisticated, this assumption is becoming less tenable. This paper explores how reflective practice has previously been taught, questioning whether it has been far more instrumentalist and procedural than assumed, thus more easily automated. This paper asks: How do we teach and assess reflective practice in a world where the use of GenAI is increasingly normalised and pervasive? This question is addressed by arguing that Gen AI lacks the ability to wonder and be surprised, therefire these elements must be included in our eudcational work in reflective practice. Turning to the aesthetic, I propose the adoption of foregrounding, a literary technique that aims at defamiliarisation, to reflective writing. This produces a 'slow reflection' aimed at surprise and not self-improvement. I suggest ways in which students can be taught how to achieve this type of reflection.
This qualitative study explores how structured learning logs appear to support reflective learning and research-skill development among Grade 12 students enrolled in AP Research course (Advanced Placement Research) in the United Arab Emirates. Twenty-one students (ages 17-18) completed weekly logs over two academic terms, and five participated in follow-up interviews. In this AP Research course, students undertook inquiry-based projects that included original research (e.g. small-scale surveys/interviews), systematic literature reviews, and basic data analysis tasks; learning logs were used to plan, monitor, and evaluate these specific activities. Content analysis identified recurring themes of metacognitive awareness, planning, accountability, time management, adaptability, and critical thinking, suggesting that learning logs may scaffold self-regulated learning behaviors. At the same time, their influence on sustained motivation was limited. Findings should be interpreted cautiously given the small sample size, single-site context, the graded nature of the logs (20% of course mark), and reliance on self-reported data. Implications include the need for explicit scaffolding and sustained, developmentally appropriate feedback to optimize reflective tools in secondary education.
Mentor teachers (MTs) and their support of reflection are widely recognised as crucial for pre-service teachers' (PSTs') learning to teach; however, the impact of reflection on professional learning is often assumed rather than empirically demonstrated. This study explores how PSTs (n = 249) engage in professional learning through reflection on mentoring experiences during their practicum. The data consisted of reflective journals with open prompts, completed within a university course emphasising a safe learning environment, enabling authentic insights. A hybrid thematic analysis, integrating data-driven and theory-driven coding, was applied to ensure both participant voice and alignment with existing literature. The analysis revealed five distinct reflective approaches adopted by PSTs and demonstrated that these played a key role in the extent to which the potential of mentoring experiences was transformed into professional learning. Mentoring strategies like feedback, modelling, advice, co-teaching, and co-planning showed varied potential for learning, with feedback having the strongest connection. Contrary to prevailing assumptions of low reflective capacity, many PSTs engaged in high-level reflection linked to professional learning. MTs and teacher educators should encourage PSTs to adopt an inquisitive approach, which proved to be essential for transforming mentoring experiences into professional learning.
Reasoning and reflection are essential professional thinking skills for health professionals, including occupational therapists. Clear definitions are needed to communicate a theory of professional thinking skills that includes both reasoning and reflection. Our aim was to understand how reasoning and reflection are defined, and therefore differentiated, in occupational therapy literature. We conducted a scoping review consistent with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews checklist. We searched CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Embase, and MEDLINE, no date restrictions, including peer-reviewed English-language literature related to occupational therapy education and practice that contained a definition of clinical reasoning, professional reasoning, critical thinking, reflective practice, reflection, or critical reflection. We extracted data using a framework for defining constructs. In total, 139 articles were included; 96 defined clinical reasoning, 15 defined professional reasoning, 12 defined critical thinking, 14 defined reflection, 16 defined reflective practice, and 10 defined critical reflection. Across these, adequate definitions were not consistent or consistently present. Most of our constructs of interest were identified as 'processes', and they appear to be considered overlapping processes. Our findings reemphasize the call for researchers to explicitly define professional thinking skills, including superordinate categories and detailed characteristics.
Reflective thinking plays a crucial role in mathematical problem solving, yet no prior literature review has explicitly examined this construct in such a context. This study addresses this gap by synthesizing research on reflective thinking in mathematical problem solving published between 2015 and 2024. A systematic literature review following the PRISMA protocol was conducted using Scopus and ERIC, yielding 23 peer-reviewed studies that met the inclusion criteria. The findings indicate that the literature is predominantly shaped by studies from Asia, particularly Indonesia and Turkey, likely reflecting curricular priorities and initiatives promoting metacognitive strategies in mathematics education. Methodologically, the studies employ diverse approaches, including quantitative, qualitative, research and development, and experimental designs, across various educational levels. Reflective thinking is shown to enhance conceptual understanding, support strategy evaluation, and facilitate the generation of alternative solutions. Its implementation is embedded in a range of instructional strategies and learning approaches. Furthermore, engagement in reflective thinking is influenced by cognitive, psychological, and social factors, as well as learning strategies and prior reflective experiences. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of integrating reflective processes into mathematical tasks and offer implications for pedagogy, curriculum design, and policy, while calling for future research on effective instructional strategies across diverse learner populations.
Reflective thinking is an effective concept used in various disciplines. However, it is particularly prominent in the field of education and is one of the most used methods in learning and teaching. This study examines the perceptions of students new to high school who are experiencing a changing curriculum regarding chemistry lessons and how often they use indicators of reflective thinking. This article presents the findings of a mixed-methods study conducted with 40 students (aged 14-15) who had recently started high school. Qualitative research methods were used to evaluate the impact of the curriculum. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the students, and they were asked to write reflective journals at regular intervals. Quantitative data classified participants as either basic or advanced reflective thinkers based on the frequency of their reflective thinking. During the analysis process, factors contributing to differences in students' perceptions of the changing chemistry curriculum and between the highest and lowest levels of reflective thinking were examined. The results indicate that the revised chemistry curriculum has a positive impact on students new to high school.
This study investigated the effectiveness of a scaffolded three-phase critical thinking intervention integrating metacognitive development among Indonesian secondary students. Using a convergent parallel mixed-methods design within a transformative paradigm, the 7-week intervention progressed systematically from foundational skill-building through metacognitive development to collaborative application with 41 secondary students (24 males, 17 females) in Central Indonesia. Quantitative measures included the Cornell Critical Thinking Test and Argument Analysis Assessment, complemented by qualitative data from observations, reflective journals, and student artifacts. Results demonstrated significant improvements in critical thinking abilities (d = 1.45), with metacognitive awareness mediating between instructional components and outcomes. While overall performance showed no significant gender differences, distinct patterns emerged in argumentation approaches, with mixed-gender groups demonstrating superior collaborative outcomes. The findings validate the three-phase model while offering evidence-based strategies for developing critical thinking capabilities regardless of prior achievement levels, gender, or cultural background.
Despite the widely known use of the concept of Reflection in initial teacher training, it remains a subject of debate, as it is understood in many different, often diffuse ways, causing tensions in the theory and practice of education. The object of the present study was to characterise the notions of reflection among trainers of Differential Education Teachers in three public universities in southern Chile. To this end, a qualitative investigation, following a design based on an instrumental case study, was carried out among 19 academic staff using semi-structured interviews and an open questionnaire as methods to collect information. Analysis enabled us to construct a concept network consisting of two central categories: Concept of Pedagogical Reflection and Concept of Reflective Practice, with their respective codes. The findings show a marked heterogeneity in how reflection is understood, influenced by the training course and professional careers of the participants. In parallel, we identified a high value attached to reflection as a key teaching tool, although the initial approach addresses its critical, transformative, and professionalising potential.
This article provides a deeper discussion about the concepts of evaluation of ideas and decisions in the Deweyan Guide for Reflective Practice (GRP). There have been recommendations for creating supplemental material to explain often difficult-to-understand concepts in the GRP. Deweyan reasoning and test of ideas are explored as the foundations for the evaluation of ideas section in the GRP. Types of tests are explored, including formal and informal experiments, non-experimental research, and reviews of scientific literature. The concept of decision is explored from a Deweyan perspective, focusing on decisions as judgments of practice resulting in warranted assertions. Steps are provided on making a decision in the GRP, including analyzing evidence, identifying factor combinations, synthesizing the successful working ideas as warranted assertions, and answering the learning objective. Recommendations for future research include empirical studies that assess how practitioners implement and refine judgments of practice using the GRP framework and creating additional supplemental materials.
