Despite the widespread adoption of reflective practices across many fields of study and practice, Reflection remains a difficult phenomenon to understand. One of the reasons why Reflection is difficult to understand is that the scientific work around Reflection has often been focused on defining different conceptions of reflection through the use of different semantics. When researchers study Reflection, they tend to analyze definitions of Reflection instead of focusing on the phenomenon of Reflection itself. Semantically rooted definitions represent how we should act, and not what actually happens when Reflection occurs. This master’s thesis will seek to understand what is actually happening in Reflection through a pragmatic methodological processing of Reflection Theories and empirical material on Reflection from an educational organization.
Through a pragmatic methodical review of the concepts of Reflection, this master’s thesis provides an examination of major theoretical approaches to Reflection including those of Dewey, Schön and Mezirow. A critical analysis of empirical material from the Case “Reflective practice-based Learning” based on the pragmatic methodology and theoretical approaches is presented. Commonalties in antecedents, context, process, outcomes, and techniques to foster Reflection are addressed. The implications of the findings, results in a visual presentation of an action-oriented understanding of Reflection in contexts of learning.