This essay will look at reflection on a critical incident that has promoted a positive outcome. It is not a very major incident but it stands out as it has a potential for learning. This essay will identify and explain Johns' (1994) model of reflection and explain what reflection is and why reflective practice is necessary and how it can be used. Schone (1983) recommended reflection on critical incidence as a valuable term, sited in Ghaye and Lillyman (1997) a critical incident id defined as
'incidence happen, but critical incidence are produced by the way we look at a situation, it is an interpretation of significance of the event.' (p.8)
Polit and Hungler (1999) defined a critical incident as:
'... an observable and integral episode of human behaviour. The word 'critical' means that the incident must have a discernable impact on some outcome; it must make either a positive or negative contribution to the accomplishment of some activity of interest." (P.332)
In this essay the outcome of the incident must be positive but it may contain some negative factors or issues.
Reflection and reflective practice is not a new idea and not only nursing professionals use reflection. It wasn't brought about to confuse or make a practitioners life difficult. It has been around for a long time and Dewey (1933) was the one person who is known to have brought reflective practice into his work (Ghaye and Lillyman 1997). It is also noted in the Nursing Standard that Dewey is acknowledged as the first educationalist to right about reflection and learning through experience (Atkins and Murphy 1994).
There are many definitions of reflection most of them agree that reflection is an active, conscious process (Dewey 1993; Boud 1985; Schon 1987; and Reid 1993)
Reflection is usually used when the practitioner comes across aproblem in practice and tries to make sense of it (Ghaye and Lillyman 1997).
Dewey (1933) defined reflection as:
'an active persistent and
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