Christopher John's Model Of Reflective Practice

In day to day life, people often reflect on events no matter how big or small the issues are. Reflection is a reviewing process of people’s experience, in order to describe, analyse, and evaluate to reshape people’s action of doing (Reid 1993). Reflective practice is essential for practitioners especially for health professionals, who interact with people that may be going through a changing in their life, so reflective practice enable practitioners to learn the experience and improve their service delivery to their full potential (Alsop 2000). Moreover, it can also help to link up new knowledge and practical skills to continue professional development. Using a reflective model, it structured the experience so that it can lead practitioners
into meaningful and in-depth reflections. And by applying reflective models, it enables practitioners to organize and enhance their intervention (Wright and Sugarman 2009) to provide the best quality client-centered service. In this essay, it will be focused on Christopher Johns’ model (2013) of reflection. The history of Johns’ model, the framework and use of Johns model, the comparison between Johns’ model of reflection 1994 to 2013 version, the advantage and disadvantage of using Johns’ model and the comparison with Gibbs (1988) model of reflection will be discussed in this essay.
Christopher Johns’ model was constructed from his work in the Burford Nursing Development in 1991 and he has been reviewing, updating and renewing the model since the 1994 version (Johns 2013).
Johns’ (2013) stated that the framework was designed to allow practitioners to look deep and wide into the experience and gain insights that do not show themselves easily. The model in 2013 version (Edition 16) is divided into five phases: preparatory, descriptive, reflective, anticipatory and insight phases. The order of cue questions is arranged to enhance the flow of thoughts, moving from an initial and significant perception towards gaining insight. If the guiding question does not fit into a particular situation, it allows flexibility for practitioners to skip the question and continue reflecting on an event. Moreover, comparing to other reflective models, Johns’ model has considered about how another party e.g. patient, colleague react and their reasons of response, instead of solely focusing the practitioner. And so, it gives practitioners a chance to view from different a person’s angle and
perspective.
Comparing Johns’ model of 2013 (Edition 16) to Johns’ model 1994; there are a number of changes in the model throughout the development and meanwhile it remains some of the elements from the original version. In the 1994 version, it breaks into five parts: description, reflection, influencing factors, could I have dealt with the situation better and learning. Contrasting Johns’ model 2013 and 1994, the preparatory phase of 2013 version highlighted the importance of placing practitioners into the best environment to reflect.
It is because by placing practitioners into a comfortable environment, it allows practitioners to be mentally prepared, which enhances gathering thoughts of the experience, so that practitioners can enable the flow of thoughts, as a result of an ideal quality of reflection.
The structure of the reflective model 2013 has been improved from its original version. It allows practitioners to have an easier understanding on the purpose of each phase of reflection, for example, anticipatory phase instead of learning in 1994 version. Also, Johns dropped the four sub-questions in the description in 1994 version, because Johns reported he felt that it ‘interfered with practitioners telling their stories’ (Johns,
1998).
Aside from that, Johns has altered and extended the cue questions to prompt practitioners to a more in-depth thinking. For example, “how did I feel about this experience” in 1994 version to “how was I feeling and what made me feel that way” in 2013 version. From that, it allows practitioners to be more conscious in realizing the reason and the factors that influences of their feeling. Moreover, Johns has developed cues to lead practitioners to challenge any ideal response e.g. habitual practice and make practitioners look realistically into their new ways of responding. For instance, the cues of “how might I reframe the situation in order to respond more effectively?” and “what factors might constrain me responding in new ways?”, and that brings tangible and careful thoughts on practitioners’ new action.
The significant difference between Johns’ model 1994 and model 2013 is the goal of reflection. The aiming goal for Johns’ model 1994 is to recognize the learning from the experience while Johns 2013 is to learn and gain insight from the experience. As Johns 2013 suggested “Insights, by their very nature, change people… Insights are at the level of understanding, empowerment and transformation”. Johns’ model 2013 aims for practitioners to alter the values and ways of viewing the experience, so that practitioners can change their actions into a more holistic and realistic practice if similar events arise again. So, Johns’ reflective model 2013 has further developed from the original version on the structured of the framework, extending cue questions to lead to more in-depth reflection and the goal of the reflection.