Similarities And Differences Betweeen Evidence Based Practice And Reflective Practice

Within the field of education there is a range of methods and practices which have been implemented by professionals, in order to improve the provision for learners. Some of the methods adopted may be due to government legislation. An example of this is the National Curriculum. It was introduced to establish a consistent approach to the teaching of all children, in maintained schools. It gives guidance on what should be taught for particular age groups and a set of level descriptors are also included to assess children by. Other practices are developed, within a school context, to address particular areas in need of improvement. Evidence Based Practice (EBP) and Reflective Practice are two methods, used by teachers, to enhance the teaching and learning given to pupils.

A common form of EBP used within schools today is Action Research. It is a way of allowing teachers to use the classroom environment to explore how successful policy is in practice. Research can be obtained through in a range of ways including statistical data, observations and discussion. Once the research has been obtained it can inform future teaching by looking at the results and what they highlight. It not only enlightens the teaching knowledge of the individual practitioner but also other colleagues, as successful methods and ideas can then be shared. Policy then becomes more meaningful as it is no longer just a written document but is actively present in the classroom.

Reflective Practice is when a learner thinks about the way in which they learn (Moon 1999 p63). It is important to look at the term вЂ?reflection’ carefully. When we think about reflective practice it is not simply just looking at what is already there. It encourages practitioners to look into the future and think about what could happen and what possibilities there are. Originating with the work of Socrates, reflective practice has become an essential tool in education. SchÐ"¶n (1983) goes further and divides this into two distinct parts. The first is reflection-in-action. This process encourages practitioners to reflect while completing a piece of work or research. They do not simply try something and if it doesn’t work move on to something else, they change and adapt their method, while continuing to strive towards a solution. The reflection is an active part of what they are doing, a key factor in addressing problems or issues that may occur during the process. The knowledge that you may already have acquired from other tasks may not be sufficient to answer the new problems or questions that have arisen. Therefore, by using reflection-in-action, you are empowered to alter your thought process for a range of scenarios. Reflection-on-action happens at the end of a process. You look at what you have achieved and how you achieved it. You find out what was successful and how you dealt with problems that arose. This type of reflection would then inform future work.

“Action initiates reflection.”

(Leitch and Day 2000, p184)

Leitch and Day make an extremely important point. By looking at the methods associated with reflective practice it is clear to see how similar it is to evidence based practice. When teachers carry out a piece of research it would involve reflection-on-action. In a classroom setting it is virtually impossible to carry out a piece of research that doesn’t raise any issues or dilemmas along the way. The research would therefore need to be altered accordingly. This is a form of reflective practice working alongside Evidence Based Practice.

Moore (1999) and Hargreaves (1996) comment on the idea that teachers would need to have �a sound understanding of relevant educational theory and research’ (p127) in order to reflect on it successfully. I would strongly agree that teachers need to become the researchers and be actively involved in current research. This makes it more specific to the needs of their particular school and classroom. By engaging in research practitioners will be better equipped to reflect on its effectiveness and it would also enhance their own personal development.

Another familiar feature of both reflective and evidence based practice is that both practices share a common aim. They both strive for change and improvement (Atkin 1993 cited in Leitch & Day 2000). Evidence is often gathered to support or justify particular practice. We look at trends in results to identify a particular weakness or strength. The optional statutory assessment grids are a great source of evidence for teachers, at the end of a year. They provide a breakdown of the types of questions that the children answered and show the percentage they got correct. In my school we analyse this data to show where there are gaps in the children’s understanding. We then use this evidence to inform our teaching practice the following year, by targeting these particular areas in need of development. By looking at this example you can see how both evidence based and reflective practice are used. As practitioners we need to reflect upon this evidence to help it inform out teaching. Without doing this, these gaps may go unidentified and there would be no improvement in that particular area of the child’s understanding. This example shows the reflection-on-action process.

Although it is possible to say that both practices share a common aim it could be argued that the difference between the two is the way in which they are used (McMahon 1999). Often when practitioners reflect on their practice, it is then that they recognise a problem or dilemma. They do this by measuring how successful they were in achieving a particular goal e.g. teaching a child to read. Therefore, the reflective process identifies a process or method that is not working effectively. However, evidence based practice aims to provide answers to the problem.

Another difference between evidence based practice and reflective practice is the way in which the evidence has been acquired. Evidence based practice has its foundations in scientific evidence (Study guide p41). The evidence acquired must be achieved through skilful and principled strategies. However, reflective practice has a slightly different approach. Teacher’s and learners reflect on their own achievements in a way that has an element of emotion and intuition. They don’t just look at test results or the percentage of children that achieved a level 5. The resources used for a lesson, the time of the day and the way that the lesson was delivered are just some of the things that maybe reflected upon. It could be argued that although the methods used are different, they still do the same