Guest editors' introduction to special theme issue [of Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development]: Reflective practices

Abstract

[Rationale]: This special theme issue of Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development is entitled Reflective Practices: Promoting Professional Learning in Contemporary Workplaces. Current rhetoric constructs such workplaces as learning organisations and communities of practice facilitating situated learning (Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1997; Lave & Wenger, 1993) where the effective attainment of outcomes depends on employees at all levels renewing their professional learning and contributing to ongoing efficiencies. Potential barriers to the promotion of this view of professional learning include employees who might take a different view of their roles and/or organisations failing to accept and build on that learning. Reflective practice (Schön, 1987) is a key pre-requisite if such professional learning is to energise contemporary workplaces and to enhance individual and institutional development. This issue of the journal canvasses a range of evidencebased strategies deployed by the contributing authors to engage in reflective practices of various kinds in their respective workplaces, with a view to evaluating their effectiveness and their impact on professional learning. What emerges from that engagement is a recognition of the situated character of reflection and of the complexity – even the confusion – of influences on its likely efficacy in initiating and sustaining productive change and lifelong learning.