Review

Figure 1: Gibb's (1988) Reflective Cycle, taken from The University of Edinburgh (2020).

Description

Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here concern what happened.

Helpful questions:

• What happened?
• When and where did it happen?
• Who was present?
• What did you and the other people do?
• What was the outcome of the situation?
• Why were you there?
• What did you want to happen?

Taken from University of Edinburgh (2020)

Feelings...

Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how they may have impacted the experience.

Helpful questions:

• What were you feeling during the situation?
• What were you feeling before and after the situation?
• What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?
• What do you think other people feel about the situation now?
• What were you thinking during the situation?
• What do you think about the situation now?

Taken from University of Edinburgh (2020)

Evaluation

Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t work in the situation. Try to be as objective and honest as possible. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other.

Helpful questions:

What was good and bad about the experience?

What went well?

What didn’t go so well?

What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)?

Taken from University of Edinburgh (2020)

Analysis

The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. Up until now you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to extract meaning from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to include it.

Helpful questions:

• Why did things go well?
• Why didn’t it go well?
• What sense can I make of the situation?
• What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me understand the situation?

Taken from University of Edinburgh (2020)

Conclusions

In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you summarise your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the future. It should be a natural response to the previous sections.

Helpful questions:

• What did I learn from this situation?
• How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved?
• What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better?
• What else could I have done?

Taken from University of Edinburgh (2020)

Action Plan

At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the future. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act differently – such that you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders might be helpful.

Helpful questions:

• If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?
• How will I develop the required skills I need?
• How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?

Taken from University of Edinburgh (2020)