Reflection On Reflection In Nursing

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Reflection has been strongly advocated by the English National Board for Nursing & Midwifery (1994), United Kingdom Central Council (UKCC) (1996), and a wealth of nursing literature over the past decade to improve nursing practice. Reflection is an in-depth consideration of events or situations outside of one-self, solitary, or with critical support. Burnard (1995) argues that, reflection has its roots in experiential learning, as it forms the second stage of the experiential learning cycle. Active reflection gives nurses the confidence in terms of clinical decision making. It can also be a meaning of identifying strengths and weaknesses in practice and enabling nurses to learn from their mistakes. Despite this, critics of reflection had mentioned that there is still no conclusive evidence proven that, nurses who engage in formal reflection provides a higher standard of patient care compared to those nurses who don’t (Deloughery, 1998).

Reflection involves relieving and recalling, who said and did what, how, when, where, and why. Reflection might lead to insight about something not noticed in time, pinpointing perhaps when the detail was missed. I believe reflection reaches the parts other forms of thinking can’t reach. Effective reflection on practice is thought to generate nursing theory and answers questions that develop nursing practice (Schon, 1983). However, there is lack of empirical evidence to support on the use of reflection in nursing. Schon (1987), had