Research-Methodology

Personal Reflection Sample: preparing a Research Report for ACCA

Personal Reflection Sample

The skill and learning statement includes the implications of interactions with mentor, an analysis of the extent to which research questions have been answered, a brief analysis of interpersonal and communication skills and their relevance to the research, as well as the contribution of the research experience to my professional and personal development.

1.      Experiences of interactions with mentor

I had chances of meeting my project mentor three times and obtained practical support regarding various aspects of the work during these meetings. Our first meeting was mainly dedicated to clarifying our expectations from the research experience and the discussions took place related to the issues of selection of the research approach and formulation of research questions and objectives.

By the time I had a meeting with my mentor for the second time Introduction and Information gathering chapters of the work have been completed and I received detailed feedback for these chapters of the research. Also, discussions were held about data analysis and presentation associated with the project.

During the final meeting with my mentor the overall work has been scrutinised and a set of specific points have been mentioned by my mentor. Specifically, my mentor raised a point that my discussions of research findings lacked depth and scale. Then, these points have been addressed and the final draft of the Research Report was completed.

I found advices given by my mentor very helpful in terms of increasing the quality of my Research Report and equipping me with knowledge of effectively conducting similar studies in the future in general. Moreover, my Project Mentor was not only highlighting the shortages that were associated with my project, but also was giving detailed explanations why these changes were desirable in a passionate manner.

Furthermore, I found these three sessions with my mentor to be highly motivational and informative experience because they have increased the level of my personal interest in conducting businesses studies. Prior to conducting the Research Report and having discussions with my mentor I was assuming conducting analytical business studies to be a rather boring experience.

However, thanks to my mentor I learned to appreciate the importance of analysing a business case in terms of identifying a current strategic and financial position of a business, and formulating the ways of identifying further strategic options available to the business.

2.      The extent to which research questions have been answered

Answering the research questions in my Research Report were directly related to the quality of secondary data, and the choice of methodology. Therefore, these issues were approached effectively by critically assessing the validity of the sources of secondary data and assessing alternative choices of methodology. Moreover, my first meeting with my Project mentor was mainly devoted to the discussion of the same issues.

As a result of comprehensive analysis the most reliable sources of secondary data in order to be used in Research Report were found to include published financial statements and annual reports, textbooks on financial and business analysis, information published in official company website, information available from ACCA website, as well as, various business journals an newspapers.

The choice of methods for conducting the study, on the other hand, was guided by the reliability of the data analysis methods and their relevance to the research issues. After spending additional amount of time for the choice of appropriate methodology and taking into account advises of my mentor, financial ratios and analytic tools have been chosen to be employed in my Research Report.

Purposely, financial and accounting ratios that were used in the study include profitability, liquidity, financial position and investor ratios, whereas, the choice of analytic tools consist of SWOT, PESTLE, and Porter’s five forces analysis.

To summarise this part, it is fair to state that all of the research questions in my Research Report have been effectively addressed, because the secondary data have been obtained from reliable sources, relevant methodology has been used to conduct the study, and the research findings have been critically discussed.

3.      Interpersonal and communication skills and their relevance to the research

I have demonstrated my interpersonal and communication skills at various stages of doing Research Report and preparing for and making the presentation. Moreover, without my interpersonal and communication skills completing the Research Report and doing the presentation would have proved to be highly challenging.

For example, my listening skills have proved to be highly valuable in terms of understanding vital information given by my mentor about increasing the quality of my Research Report, because these advises were fully understood and implemented into the practice.

My interpersonal skills have also played a positive role when I asked some of my trusted colleagues to be an audience when I was rehearsing my presentation. I was making presentations in front of my colleagues and was asking for their opinions about the quality of my presentation. This practice took place many times in different settings and I believe that following this strategy has enhanced the quality of my presentation and my marks.

However, my communication skills have played a crucial role in terms of succeeding in making the presentation effectively. I have learned from my experiences within and outside of academic settings that communication skills play the most crucial role in terms of succeeding in personal and professional lives.

For instance, an individual may possess a deep knowledge about a certain area. However, if the individual lacks competency of communicating his or her ideas, knowledge and feelings in an effective manner, the overall competency of the individual and the level of his or her contribution to the organisation will always remain compromised.

Therefore, in my opinion, regardless of the field, industry or type of organisation, communication skills can be specified as a compulsory attribute for an employee in order to be considered an a competent. In my case in particular, my advanced level of communication skills have enabled me to do my Research Report presentation effectively which has resulted in positive acclaim from my peers and mentor.

4.      The potential contribution of Research Report to the level of professional development

Conducting the Research Report and doing the presentation has increased the level of my professional competency in several ways. First of all, I have to mention the fact that I have developed a critical mindset towards solving business issues as a result of conducting the Research Report.

My mentor made it clear that it was important to critically analyse related issues in Research Report rather than just offering description of the issues and supplying calculations. The mentor had stressed many times that critical analysis and discussions are the elements of the work that increase its value. For the same reason I had to revise my Research Report several times until my mentor was satisfied with the level of critical analysis the work had included.

Although, such an approach to work seemed to be very challenging and confusing during the research process, I appreciated the value of critical analysis once the final work was completed. The skills of critical analysis that I have developed and applied in Research Report can easily be applied when real business issues would need to be resolved by me in the future in my professional capacity.

Completing the Research Report was similar to project management in real businesses environment in terms of strict deadlines, scarcity of resources, organising and planning, scheduling meetings, doing presentations etc. Therefore, the skills I developed during the process of completing Research Report can be used in order to successfully manage business projects in the future.

Moreover, my writing skills have also been greatly improved as a result of engaging in Research Report. Despite the popular opinion that with the increasing importance of information technology the practice of writing letters and reports are being replaced by alternative means of business communications, the importance of writing will always remain significant for business managers.

From this point of view engaging in Research Report was a very beneficial experience for me on a personal level. Specifically, writing the paper of almost ten thousand words in total, including this personal reflection, has made me better prepared to join the full-time workforce once my studies are completed.

Lastly, as a result of preparing the Research Report my professional interest on the issues associated with corporate strategy has been enhanced. Moreover, I am planning to continue studying the issues of corporate strategy and that knowledge would benefit me in the future as a corporate leader.

5.      Gains derived from conducting Research Report experience on a personal level

On a personal level I benefited from conducting the Research Report and doing the presentation in a number of ways. The research experience with Oxford Brookes has increased the level of my motivation for studying, making bold plans for my future career and implements necessary measures and initiatives in order to accomplish these plans. My mentor deserves to be mentioned here specifically for all encouragements and practical tips that can be applied in various alternative settings apart from academic life.

The level of my self-confidence has also been increased because I could complete the Research Report in time. Moreover, the presentation experience has increased the level of my self-confidence dramatically, because I understood that if I could do a successful presentation in front of my mentor and colleagues, doing the presentations of multi-million projects in front of top executives was just a matter of time.

The paramount importance of self-confidence for an individual is an undisputable matter. Self-confidence allows us to set ambitious plans and utilise all the available resources efficiently in order to achieve these plans.

My time-management skills have also been improved by the end of the Research Report. This is because there was a specific deadline for both, the Research Report and presentation and I had to adopt some principles related to time management in order to be able to submit my work on time.

These principles included setting specific deadlines for each chapter of the work, and above all, dramatically cutting the amount of time I used to browse social networking sites on the internet. I can highlight this fact as one of the most substantial gains in a personal level. This is because prior to the research experience I used to spend several hours a day browsing a set of social networking sites with no real benefit whatsoever. However, once the priority was given to the Research Project, this bad habit was dealt with effectively and irreversibly.

6.      Conclusions

To summarise, completing the Research Report and making presentation with Oxford Brookes University following my ACCA course has increased the level of my preparedness to join the full-time workforce and successfully utilise my energy and knowledge. In my opinion the biggest benefit I received from enrolling to this course of study is that the course of study, the Research Report and doing the presentation have made me to believe in my skills and capabilities and they have also awoke my desire to approach studying as a lifelong process.

Moreover, I have obtained a set of professional and personal gains as a result of completing the Research Report and making presentation that include the development of a critical mindset, improvement my writing and time management skills and enhancement of the level of my self-confidence.

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Critical Reflections on Conducting Qualitative Health Research During COVID-19: The Lived Experiences of a Cohort of Postgraduate Students in a South African University

Jennifer nyawira githaiga.

1 Division of Social and Behavioural Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Carmen Späth

2 School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa

Namhla Sicwebu

Shehani perera, tsidiso tolla, natalie leon.

3 Health Systems Research Unit, South African Medical Research Council, Cape Town, South Africa

4 Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

COVID-19 ushered in public health guidelines restricting face-to-face contact and movement, and encouraging social distancing, all of which had implications for conducting field-based research during the pandemic. For qualitative researchers, this meant adapting conventional face-to-face methods and resorting to virtual variations of the same in adherence to stipulated COVID-19 health protocols. Virtual qualitative research introduced new concerns and logistical challenges. This paper presents critical reflections on experiences of conducting qualitative research during the pandemic, from the perspectives of a cohort of postgraduate fellows. A critical reflection framework was utilised to explore fellows experiences and meanings ascribed to their experiences. The research findings illustrate three overarching processes which, in turn, shaped ways of thinking, doing and being. First, explicating tacit assumptions about their anticipated research journeys and interrogating these. Second, shifts in power differentials demonstrated by role reversal between researchers and participants, and between fellows and supervisors as they re-negotiated their positionalities in virtual research spaces. Third, context specific sense-making, in which - narrative accounts support the notion of knowledge as a social construct. Our findings have important implications for qualitative research practice. Our study documents methodological nuances and social implications of conducting qualitative research during COVID-19 and in a-South African context. In addition, our study exemplifies the use of critical reflection in qualitative research practice in the specific context of postgraduate academic research. Further, our study illustrates how the use of technology shapes qualitative research protocol development, data collection and analysis phases.

Introduction

The onset of COVID-19 and attempts to curb its spread ushered in public health guidelines restricting face-to-face contact and movement, and encouraging social distancing, all of which had implications for conducting field-based research during the pandemic ( Pocock et al., 2021 ; Varma et al., 2021 ). For qualitative researchers, this meant adapting conventional face-to-face methods such as in-depth interviews, observation and focus group discussions and resorting to virtual variations of the same in adherence to stipulated COVID-19 health protocols ( Moises, 2020 ; Sy et al., 2020 ). Virtual qualitative research introduced new concerns and logistical challenges. These included technological challenges related to researchers’ knowledge, skills and access to virtual data collection tools, internet connectivity and quality of data ( Greeff, 2020 ; Rahman et al., 2021 ). In addition, there were concerns around virtual interactions such as online distractions, challenges in gaining access to and establishing rapport with participants virtually, and the absence of non-verbal cues when utilising audio platforms without video options ( Pocock et al., 2021 ; Rahman et al., 2021 ). Further, ethical challenges relating to obtaining informed consent and data security in virtual spaces were reported ( Greeff, 2020 ).

During this period several published articles provided information on various aspects of doing qualitative research during the pandemic. At the start of our study, we conducted an open search of articles addressing qualitative research during COVID-19 and sampled a few interesting studies, which we then categorised based on their content. One category of publications was conceptual papers. These included a systematic review on the experience of conducting qualitative evidence synthesis during the pandemic ( Biesty et al., 2020 ), articles furnishing information on practical considerations for conducting virtual qualitative research during COVID-19 ( Greeff, 2020 ; Newman et al., 2021 ; Varma et al., 2021 ), studies foregrounding challenges ( Sah et al., 2020 ; Santana et al., 2021 ) and others demonstrating the value of qualitative methods in research during a pandemic ( Teti et al., 2020 ). A second category of publications focused specifically on methods-related issues ( Lobe et al., 2020 ; Moises, 2020 ; Pocock et al., 2021 ; Webber-Ritchey et al., 2021 ), including information on tools and methods available for virtual data collection and ethical implications of the same ( Lobe et al., 2020 ). A third category of studies presented first-hand experiential accounts of conducting qualitative research during COVID-19, highlighting how qualitative research and methods were adapted to facilitate continuation of ongoing research ( Rahman et al., 2021 ) and new research conducted during this time ( Jairath et al., 2021 ; Rania et al., 2021 ; Roberts et al., 2021 ; Rolf et al., 2021 ).

The conceptual and methods studies were a useful roadmap in navigating the unfamiliar terrain of qualitative research during the pandemic. The experiential studies showcased real life scenarios of scholars’ qualitative research in different contexts, underscoring the necessity of adapting available research methods and tools for contextual relevance. In all three categories of studies, perspectives from Africa were conspicuously absent despite several ongoing research activities in the continent. Our study contributes to this gap by examining qualitative research experiences during COVID-19, from the perspectives of a small cohort of doctoral and postdoctoral students at a South African university.

The aims of this study were to:

  • (1) Describe the experiences of conducting qualitative health research during COVID-19 from the perspectives of a cohort of four postgraduate (public health) students
  • (2) Critically reflect on meaning-making processes around these experiences
  • (3) Highlight lessons learnt from these research experiences.

In so doing, we hoped to contribute to qualitative methods discourse in two ways. First, by illuminating methodological nuances of qualitative research during COVID-19 in a South African context. Second, by exemplifying the value of critical reflection in qualitative research practices in the specific context of postgraduate academic research.

Our specific context is South Africa, where COVID-19 public health protocols included varied levels of lockdowns each with specified restrictions ( Greeff, 2020 ; Haider et al., 2020 ; Stiegler & Bouchard, 2020 ). The lockdown in South Africa, described as the most restraining lockdown in Africa and one of the strict globally, oscillated from levels 5–1 with levels 5 and 4 being the most stringent, where all persons were confined to their residences with the exception of healthcare personnel and those in need of emergency medical care ( South African Government, 2022 ; Stiegler & Bouchard, 2020 ). This, in turn, shaped research regulations adopted by institutional review boards, for instance suspension of all non-therapeutic research involving human subjects during lockdown levels 5 and 4 ( Faculty of Health Sciences HREC, 2020 ).

In this study, we explored qualitative research during COVID-19 as experienced by a small cohort of doctoral and post-doctoral fellows from the University of Cape Town (UCT). The students are part of the ‘Building Research in Inter-Disciplinary Gender and HIV through the Social Sciences’ (BRIDGES) Programme, a 5-year NIH funded (D43) programme housed in UCT’s Division of Social and Behavioural Sciences, School of Public Health. Doctoral degrees and postdoctoral studies in South Africa are fully research-based and, as such, the fellows were engaged in various aspects of their research during COVID-19 as detailed in the results section. The research team, all of whom are co-authors of this manuscript, comprised the lead author, who was involved in supervising and mentoring the fellows in addition to serving as the BRIDGES programme manager, four postgraduate fellows (authors b-e) who included three doctoral students and one postdoctoral research fellow, and a BRIDGES co-investigator and senior researcher listed as the last author.

Theoretical Approach

We utilised critical reflection, a qualitative research approach, for this study. Critical reflection stemmed from the discipline of social work and is consonant with broader qualitative research knowledge paradigms, which ontologically embrace relativism in acknowledging the existence of multiple subjective realities that are socially constructed ( Gilson et al., 2011 ; Hickson, 2016 ). Epistemologically, qualitative research knowledge paradigms support the notion that knowledge is co-constructed in the process of interaction between researchers and participants, including reflexivity as a component of meaning-making and supports research in natural rather than experimental environments ( Gilson et al., 2011 ; Hickson, 2016 ).

Critical reflection, as conceptualised by Fook and colleagues, is a postmodernist approach which considers knowledge a social construction, foregrounds the role of language in representation of dominant discourses, and embraces non-binary meaning-making ( Askeland & Fook, 2009 ; Beres & Fook, 2020 ; Fook, 2015 ). Critical social theory, a component critical reflection, engages with the notion of power and how this plays out among various individuals and groups ( Beres & Fook, 2020 ; Fook, 2015 ). Critical reflection entails reflective practice, which calls for explication and examination of individuals’ assumptions and reflexivity, which necessitates introspection in a bid to understand how individual pre-suppositions influence interactions with others in various social contexts ( Beres & Fook, 2020 ; Fook, 2015 ).

The context of the BRIDGES Programme, intertwined with the use of critical reflection as a theoretical framework, yielded a unique relational environment characterised by informal, collegial relationships among fellows and supervisors, including the programme manager. In BRIDGES, a coordinated peer-supported PhD and postdoctoral fellowship programme, fellows were actively involved in decisions about how the program operates, based on their needs. This relational context is illustrated further in the methods and discussions sections.

Critical reflection is infused informally into various elements of the BRIDGES Programme. Biweekly fellows’ meetings, biweekly supervision meetings, regular peer review and mentorship meetings all functioned as spaces for critical reflection. Following the first few fellows’ meetings, the programme manager and - fellows discussed the idea of documenting parts of fellows’ academic journeys in the form of brief baseline interviews. The interviews, which form our first data set, explored individual fellows’ expectations as they commenced postgraduate studies in 2020, including ongoing and anticipated challenges, hopes, feelings and fears. With fellows’ consent, the interviews were conducted and audio recorded by the programme manager (JNG) and a colleague in the programme. Each fellow received a copy of their interview transcription. Reflections shared during these baseline interviews were revisited during supervision meetings as well as mid-year and end-year review meetings with the supervision team and individual fellows. Snippets from these interviews are presented in the first sub-section of the results section titled ‘pre-COVID-19’.

In 2021, informal conversations about fieldwork experiences culminated in the idea of writing a paper about these experiences. During the BRIDGES 2021 Symposium, all the co-authors met and agreed on what they wanted to do, how they intended to do it, roles and responsibilities of all co-authors and tentative timelines. Conceptualisation of the study and determining the themes for in-depth interviews (IDIs), which formed the second data set, was done collaboratively. The last co-author (NL), a BRIDGES co-investigator and experienced researcher, guided this process. Fellows and the interviewer had a few weeks to think through the IDI themes so that during the actual interviews, the interviewer (JNG) and each of the fellows reflected critically on their lived experiences. These interviews, each of which took approximately one and a quarter hours, constitute a major part of the results section. Each fellow gave verbal consent for the interview, including consent for audio-recording. The IDIs were, in essence, an extension of various bits of narrative accounts shared during biweekly fellows’ and supervision meetings, and a culmination of critical reflection activities and processes.

Critical reflection involves reflexivity in the sense of considering how one’s positionality, including one’s pre-understandings, shape the research process ( Beres & Fook, 2020 ). As an academic supervisor and programme manager who had been closely involved in the fellows’ academic journeys, JNG’s pre-understandings included assumptions based on interactions with fellows at individual and group levels, and her own sense-making around these interactions. The interviewers’ reflections are weaved into the discussion section.

Data analysis incorporated a critical reflection framework. This necessitated exploring a layer below the descriptive data and interrogating this data in the quest for overt and covert assumptions inset in narrative accounts of fellows’ lived experiences. This process entailed paying close attention to the various ways through which language revealed individuals’ social constructions of their subjective realities and how power played out in various research interactions and contexts ( Beres & Fook, 2020 ; Fook, 2015 ). One of the IDI questions delved into reflexivity by exploring how individuals’ presuppositions shaped their research experiences.

Throughout our process, we considered the ethical conduct of research in various ways. First, we opted for a participatory approach where all the co-authors were involved in all parts of the knowledge construction process, including the decision whether or not to proceed with the interviews and write up, workshopping around possible types/thematic content of research questions and methods that would be appropriate in capturing experiential accounts, reviewing findings (member checking) and making decisions about content to be included or not. For instance, co-authors pointed out sections that needed reframing to avoid misunderstanding. Second, each co-author had a say in what should be included. For instance, we adhered to a fellow’s recommendation that we exclude one data set of short stories previously published in a public online repository, because these stories might inadvertently disclose their identities, which may have negative ramifications on their continued engagement with community members during their research. Third, all co-authors’ consent was sought at each stage of the process, for instance, requesting to record each fellow’s statement consenting to participate in the interviews, and through member checking of emerging data and all reiterations of the manuscript. Finally, only data drawn solely from co-authors’ reflections of their own lived experiences is included in this manuscript.

In our discussion of emerging themes, we superimpose key COVID-19 milestones as parallel metaphors to illustrate the various ways in which the pandemic shaped parts of fellows’ research journeys (See Figure 1 ).

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Postgraduate fellows’ experiences of research during COVID-19.

In subsequent paragraphs we discuss each of the themes with corresponding metaphors and data excerpts as supporting evidence.

Pre-COVID-19: “But because I have never experienced something like that before…”

As noted in the introduction, BRIDGES fellows commenced their postgraduate studies at the beginning of 2020. During our first annual symposium in March 2020, we conducted brief baseline interviews with the fellows to establish their expectations as they commenced their academic programs. The following excerpts illustrate some of the fellows’ expectations framed as anticipated challenges, hopes, feelings and fears:

Interviewer: Do you anticipate any challenges?
Lulu: I know there’ll be challenges because I’m used to working in communities; that there might be barriers because of the South African context, for example, violence and protests … I am not naïve with [sic] the process.
Interviewer: What are your hopes for 2020?
Moyo: 2020 [deep sigh] I think for me it will be getting to that point where, I don’t know if this ever happens, but getting to that point where I know what I want to do and actually start doing that.
Interviewer: How are you feeling about it [PhD/postdoc]?
Zumba: So, feelings - apprehension, scared…feeling optimistic. Uh particularly when I think about the people surrounding me. So the fact that I can actually talk to my peers like X, Y and Z, and also knowing that I can like reach out to people who are outside that [NIH program] cohort.
Interviewer: Do you have any fears as you embark on this [PhD/postdoc] journey?
Tenda : I think I’m a bit afraid of getting stuck; getting stuck in my head about a certain idea and not being able to move beyond that. And also needing to ask for help. I tend to try to work things out in my head and try to do it myself so I’m very happy there is a very supportive team.

These excerpts reflect the typical concerns of postgraduate students in institutions of higher learning, and implicit assumptions about how their academic journeys would unfold. The excerpts shed light into the research context at the broader socio-political context of unrest in communities marked by mass action, the institutional context of being part of a research context where peer support was expected, and at the intrapersonal context of internal angst related to academic performance. At this point, COVID-19 did not feature in their narratives not because they had not heard of it but rather because the gravity of the situation was not yet part of their lived reality.

The end of symposium marked a narrative twist as the reality of the impact of COVID-19 began to dawn:

Zumba: It became a reality in late January 2020. And that's because my housemate was in China at the time…But because I have never experienced something like that before in my life, I don't think I really understood what it meant for there to be like a disease like an outbreak…I didn't fully understand it but I think I fully got to understand it when we went back to Cape Town from Goedgedacht [symposium]… Because before…I don't know if you remember, but there was like this perception that it won't affect Africa at all…we're strong. So, I think that's why I was not afraid.
Tenda: So, I think the first news of it really was at the end of February…And I don't think I expected it to blow up in quite the proportions that it did blow up…Until that last day at the Symposium where there was frantic, frenzied energy when our colleagues from the US had to get on a flight as quickly as possible and rush back home because borders were starting to close. So, there was this atmosphere of ‘oh, my gosh, this is not contained to Wuhan. It’s something that's going to start affecting us all.’

The narrative twist is evident in the use of binary constructs to convey individuals’ social constructions of their dawning realities ( Beres & Fook, 2020 ; Fook, 2015 ). This is encapsulated in the shift of perspective from the initial acknowledgement of COVID-19 as a disease that is far removed from ‘ us ’, that was affecting ‘ them ’ out there, to the shocking realisation that ‘it’s something that’s going to start affecting us all’. This included Africa; right down to the level of the BRIDGES Programme, as co-investigators from USA scrambled to leave South Africa after a symposium, amidst talks of national lockdowns in a bid to control disease spread. This narrative twist heralded a shift in perspective as previous confidence that “we’re strong” gave way to feelings of vulnerability upon realisation that the pandemic was “going to start affecting us all.” At this point, the relative unfamiliarity of doctoral and postdoctoral studies seemed to pale in comparison with the unfamiliarity of COVID-19 in the sense of having “never experienced something like that before.” In subsequent sections, we discuss how COVID-19 shaped fellows’ experiences of conducting qualitative research.

Adherence to Protocols: “I should have been…, but instead…”

In South Africa, COVID-19 protocols included a five-level nationwide lockdown with restrictions on movement and activities ranging in a continuum, as described in the context section. National COVID-19 protocols mandated at institutional level impacted research contexts and processes, necessitating a change of plan from what ‘should have been’ to the next available alternative:

Lulu: I should have been able to start the year with my going into the clinics preparing for field work during the recruitment, working with the health care workers and help for them to assist me with recruitment, and then moving into the data collection space. But instead…it was a revision process of my protocol, then amendment.
Moyo: We’d start the interview, and because there was a lot of network issues…phone calls would get disconnected. Oh, and there was also at some point, the issue of load shedding…So if there's load shedding, there's no network…that’s in South Africa at least. So, I have two interviews - two if not three - that I never got to finish because they got disconnected. I could not get them to schedule or reschedule another time…they would not respond…I learned that actually, they never had phones…not theirs. It was whose phone? Like mom's phone, aunt’s phone.

At a pragmatic level, lockdown restrictions meant delays for fellows like Lulu, who had been cleared for fieldwork prior to the lockdown, but were required to apply for protocol amendments to change their methods to virtual research, which was a source of frustration. Virtual research ushered in a new set of context-specific challenges, including cell phone network connectivity problems, nationwide intermittent power outages (load shedding), which further hampered cell phone network connectivity, non-responsiveness of participants and use of shared phones leading to limited access.

In the process, assumptions about research procedures from ethics approval to fieldwork and assumptions pertaining to the research context such as phones being available and network services being operational were put to the test as fellows adhered to COVID-19 protocols and attempted to navigate in this new terrain. These assumptions implicitly point to power hierarchies implicated in adherence to protocols. Lulu who, under normal circumstances, would have been in control of her research process and actively engaged in fieldwork was rendered powerless by institutional protocols requiring additional clearance due to the new COVID reality. Similarly, Moyo, who assumed that she would have more control over her research interviews, experienced a toppling of power hierarchies in the virtual context where participants seemed to determine if/when they would be interviewed or not. Both excerpts convey a sense of powerlessness in the face of COVID-related circumstances that were beyond their control.

Social distancing, a measure introduced to alleviate the spread of COVID-19 by limiting physical contact, translated into restrictions on face-to-face research in favour of virtual research. Paradoxically, virtual research techniques such as telephone interviews, WhatsApp interviews and diaries which were intended to maintain safe interactions between researchers and participants instead produced technological ‘screens’, rendering it difficult for fellows to maintain a sense of connectedness with participants:

Tenda: And then after the interview, I would say, “you know, there's this…WhatsApp diary component, would you like to enrol?” Okay, then they would say yes or no …The only problem has been that even the ones that say yes just don't respond. Or, you know, it takes a few months before a … response comes back. In fact, the entire project has felt a little bit like you're trying to maintain rapport and ensure that people stay engaged, because they don't know what you look like…So yes, there's been a lot of relationship maintenance, actually, in this entire process.
Moyo: So I was sure that all the young people would have phones. And have WhatsApp, obviously…And also really, because I was giving them data, right? for WhatsApp. So, I thought they will be so [emphasis] happy to get the data that they would definitely want to be part of the study…But yeah, it didn't, didn't work out like that…And I think I think we assume that just because these people are “poor” then we'll come with these incentives and they'll be happy to be part of the project. Yeah. But I well, I think for me, they exercised their agency in that sense.

For Tenda, the lack of physical presence and interaction between her and her research participants yielded a somewhat detached virtual relational space she thought may have contributed to participants’ reticence or refusal to respond to invitations to participate in the Whatsapp component of her study. Moyo’s meaning-making process involved reflecting on her presuppositions and acknowledging how these were challenged by unexpected responses from her participants. Based on her preunderstandings, Moyo’s positionality as a relatively ‘rich’ researcher offering incentives to participants ought to have placed her in a position of relative power over her needy participants but to her surprise, participants’ demonstrated power through what she deemed ‘exercising their agency’.

In relation to qualitative research practice, Tenda and Moyo’s experiences suggest that virtual research was fraught with challenges and, as such, face-to-face research might have rendered it easier to maintain interpersonal connections with research participants. However, Lulu’s contrasting narrative presents a counter-perspective:

Lulu: I think here again, it's the method. [It] makes/has an impact here on their experience…perhaps there might have been discomfort in speaking about that type of financial challenges and resource access issues in a face-to-face environment. But…they were able to express themselves and were comfortable enough to tell me about really challenging circumstances that they that they have, and living in communities affected by poverty, in terms of their access to resources in their communities.

The virtual space seems to have served as safe space making it easier for young participants’ disclosure about some of their struggles. Drawing from her previous experience working with young people, which constitutes some of her presuppositions, Lulu speculated that the ‘screens’ afforded by virtually mediated research interactions may have enhanced conversations around sensitive topics. Tenda, Moyo and Lulu’s accounts all illustrate the notion of knowledge as a social construct and power of language in accentuating dominant discourses about researcher-participant interactions.

Adapting to New Realities: “One of the considerations…”

Fellows’ research experiences did not occur in a vacuum but rather were intricately interwoven with their personal lives, necessitating personal adjustments:

Lulu: One of the considerations of having to then move to digital methods…was part of my health challenges and the unpredictability after becoming really sick.…so, of course…moving to those methods would be…able to prevent any future clinic-related anxiety about becoming sick or anything like that.

In the previous section, we highlighted Lulu’s predicament when the start of her fieldwork was delayed when she had to apply for an amendment due to adjustment of national COVID-19 lockdown levels which translated to the prohibition of face-to-face research. Even so, Lulu’s shift to virtual research was not entirely an inconvenience but actually proved advantageous in light of her illness experience which left her feeling vulnerable. In Moyo’s case, illness of a close family member had ramifications on her research process when she assumed the role of primary caregiver:

Moyo: And then I submitted to HREC [Human Research Ethics Committee] at least that was out of the way. I thought I was going to use that time to read. To read and you know, just think about my PhD while I wait for HREC, and plan for field work. But that didn’t really happen…so [caregiving] from early morning, up until around four o'clock, and then my [other family member] would take over…And yeah, I’m happy that I stayed…obviously, I felt like…the PhD was being delayed.

Moyo’s dilemma was palpable as reflected on the impact of caring for a gravely ill close family member, concluding that the few months’ delay in her research was a worthwhile sacrifice. At an existential level, and particularly in the face of life-threatening illness, family took precedence over her academic project.

For Tenda, adapting to new realities meant being opportunistic in the sense of capitalising on available resources, despite lockdown regulations which constrained people to their homes:

Tenda: And that [moving house] started to be a lot better in terms of, you know, working from home situation, because there was more table space. And that was during the proposal writing phase, which was a really critical phase, I think, to have this kind of space. Because we were just…just so much in my head. And it started to get sort of claustrophobic in the other small apartment. So, coming to this new open space, and actually sort of gave more life to the ideas about my PhD. Yes, a lot more clarity as to what I was doing…. I think the work actually went quite well. Because there was nothing else to do. You know, I think that sort of closed space precipitated this desire to work and to be productive in doing something.

The use of metaphor and binaries to capture the ramifications of personal space constraints due to lockdown restrictions is exemplified in this excerpt. The literal [physical] and metaphorical [mental] claustrophobia experienced by Tenda in her new home-work space, followed by moving to a bigger apartment enhanced her research ideas and created and opportunity to do a lot ‘because there was nothing else to do.’

‘Behind the Masks’ and Contact Tracing: “It’s quite layered…”

In the same way contact tracing played a significant role in various seasons of COVID-19, virtual research was marked by the accentuated role of gatekeepers as ‘contract tracers’ in the sense of linking researchers to participants during the lockdown. With regulations restricting face-to-face research engagement to curb spread of COVID-19, fellows were forced to rely on gatekeepers to assist with introductions to relevant community stakeholders and recruitment of participants. Fellows’ interactions with gatekeepers were coupled with a heightened sense of individual self-awareness in the reflexive sense of ‘who am I and how did my presence influence my research experience?’ This inevitably entailed negotiating their positionalities and social identities as ‘semi-insiders’ in the field:

Zumba: and even though I’m black, [hesitates]…I didn't know if they would have taken me as seriously as they did, if I just walked in alone, as opposed to walk[ing] in with her [gatekeeper] because of the, you know, racial context in South Africa, you know, how much respect we assign to whiteness. So, I felt having her there was helpful, but not only in terms of her whiteness, but also because they knew her already… Yeah, it’s quite layered so I wouldn’t say it’s just [emphasis] her whiteness. Okay. Let me ignore the whiteness…Yeah, no, if I was a white walking in, I would have not needed her. But because I was a black student who doesn't come from a well-off home, I don’t dress in a certain way…because you can be black, but then you can also be assigned…an honorary white position based on where you come from and how you speak…yeah, it [race] plays a role, hence, why the American student who came here - even though she was black - but because of the way she speaks and where she comes from, she then gets that honorary status of whiteness.

Zumba’s multi-layered narrative offers a historical, socio-political background of what she terms the racial context in South Africa, where whiteness is associated with privilege. Against this background, she positioned herself as a black South African researcher who benefitted from having a white gatekeeper to assist her navigate in her research context, a black local township. As she told her story, Zumba struggled with the idea of ‘othering’ as evidenced by her initial observation that it was the gatekeepers’ position of privileged whiteness, in contrast to her relatively underprivileged blackness, that helped her gain entry into the field, followed by a retraction of the statement and later a reinstatement of her viewpoint, with an example to validate her point.

In this excerpt, which shows how knowledge is socially constructed, Zumba propagated a dominant narrative and by so doing inadvertently maintained status quo by positioning herself relative to the gatekeeper. However, she was cognizant of the possibility that a black person could be afforded honorary white status based on certain characteristics but deemed herself ineligible for such honorary status. A similar idea of fluidity of status based on colour and socio-economic strata is encapsulated in what has been described as Brazil’s ‘pigmentocracy’ where socio-economic status determines perceived status of blackness or whiteness, with possibility of honorary whiteness ascribed on the basis of affluence ( Lima, 2007 ).

In a contrasting account of what she considered a case of mistaken identity, Moyo reflected on her interactions with the gatekeeper who helped her access her research participants:

Moyo: So, there was a lot of noise, right? A lot of music from everywhere… outside, but because everything is just closer together. Yeah. So, I said ‘Yho! The noise is going to be a problem for us.’ And he [gatekeeper] was like, ‘Yeah, I know. I know. I’ll try to talk to them. But you know, mos? You're also from a township. You know how it is.’… And I, I didn’t say anything…[at the] time, because…it might have come out wrong. Oh, he would have received it in a wrong way. Yeah…And I think maybe because you're black. Yeah.

Inset in this conversation is Moyo’s interpretation of her experience: the assumption that being black implied that one was from the township (neighbourhood where black people live), which the gatekeeper seemed to have assumed. Consequently, he [gatekeeper] expected Moyo, as one residing in a township, to be acquainted with and, as such, not to be unduly perturbed by noise, captured by his statement ‘you know how it is’. Moyo’s response was to remain silent and maintain status quo to avoid any negative repercussions of disclosing her true identity as a ‘semi-insider’ who was accorded insider status by virtue of being black despite not meeting the second criterion of living in a township. In this sense, silence served to maintain a sense of equality and power balance due to perceived similarity.

Like Zumba and Moyo, Tenda also grappled with her positionality and, in this case, as an outsider. Tenda, whose research was clinic-based, raised concerns about the timing of conducting in-person research during COVID-19: the ethics of attempting to go into to the clinic space:

Tenda: Once I had settled on the research question, I knew I’d have to go into clinics. And then I would be seeing patients often. And so not only was I worried about my own health and safety then - because back then we had no idea really, what COVID was, the extent of the problem, where the vaccination was going to come from, when it was going to, you know; we had no answers of the sort - but also of myself going into the clinical space, not only as a researcher who is going to go and extract [emphasis] data from overburdened, overwhelmed staff, but also just there are vulnerable patients in this space. And I going in as a healthy person, potentially transmitting [COVID] was a sort of, like, ethical dilemma, you know, ‘do I do this at all?’

Tenda utilised language powerfully in positioning herself as an outsider intruding the clinic space with her research agenda by ‘extracting data from overburdened, overwhelmed staff and vulnerable patients.’ This excerpt illumines implicit pre-suppositions about her relative position of power as a researcher and more so in the local public health clinic research context where, based on our experience, (1) researchers are often reliant on staff as gatekeepers who are mostly healthcare workers (2) hierarchical protocols in the health care systems may oblige gatekeepers to assist researchers whose research has been approved by the Department of Health and ratified by facility managers. The timing of Tenda’s research in the middle of a pandemic ushered in an ethical dilemma conveyed in her rhetorical question ‘do I do this at all?’

In Retrospect: “I might not have gone for that, but…”

Fellows’ meaning making processes included accounts of insights gained from their experiences, as they reflected on the question about what they might have done the same or differently if it were not for COVID-19. This entailed engaging with initial versus emerging persuasions about virtual research and reflecting on changes that may or may not have occurred during the course of fieldwork. Zumba, who resisted virtual research until lockdown restrictions left her with no choice, was quite clear about her persisting preference for face-to-face research. However, at a pragmatic level, she retrospectively appreciated her virtual research experience:

Zumba: I might not have gone for that [virtual interviews], but that would have... robbed me of the opportunity of actually like doing more interviews, because again, I would still only have those few days with young people. But doing online stuff allowed me to interview young people on days where I will not be able to access them normally, so it was an opportunity.

Moyo, who was set on experimenting with virtual research even prior to COVID-19 restrictions on face-to-face research, maintained her preference for virtual research:

Moyo: But I feel like then the virtual aspect of it, we haven't really explored it that much. And a lot of the projects that have gone virtual have gone virtual because of COVID. So, I think even if there was no COVID, I would still have done it [virtual research] …There’s more to be done… But obviously, there’s a lot of challenges with that. Besides COVID. Yes. And now that I know young people don’t really have phones. There’s also the issue of network.

Even so, her experience left her more aware of the challenges akin to virtual data collection. The need for flexibility is implied in both accounts: flexibility in attempting virtual interviews in Zumba’s case, and flexibility in navigating the challenges of virtual research in Moyo’s case.

The theme of flexibility recurred frequently in fellows’ narratives. Zumba captured the essence of flexibility in her metaphorical description of lessons learned from her experience of qualitative research during the pandemic:

Zumba: So, I think have learned the importance of becoming like water. Yeah, becoming like water…the ability to just bend and, you know, [be] flexible. You know, like you put water into whatever and it shapes into that thing. Then you transfer to another thing. So yeah, I’ve learned the importance of becoming like water; just learning to be flexible and to listen to feedback.

The concept of malleability, conveyed in the analogy of ‘becoming like water’, featured in all the fellows’ experiences. Lulu’s closing reflection at the end of her interview, which resonates with the voices of the other fellows and the interviewer, serves as a fitting coda:

Lulu: So, I think I’ve learned about research processes, and, you know, this whole idea of, you need to remember that you need to be flexible, and that research is unpredictable. And you must be willing to make changes. It just unfolded in a very different way for all of us in the research field. So, we read about it, we learn about it, we [were] told about it, we experienced some of it, but we couldn't predict what happened with COVID-19. We still affected by it. And so that was quite a dramatic change. So, I've learned about control and acceptance in a way…sometimes things can happen that you don't expect and sometimes in a really extreme way. And we've learned about that now, and to have some form of acceptance and being gentle with yourself.

This study explored experiences of conducting qualitative research during COVID-19 from the perspectives of a cohort of four postgraduate (doctoral and postdoctoral) public health fellows. The critical reflection framework provided a mental space for personal reflection, including incessant questioning of individual pre-suppositions and positionalities throughout the entire process. Meaning making involved three overarching processes, exemplified in the five COVID-19 milestones detailed in the results section, which culminated in transformed ways of thinking, doing and being. Firstly, explicating tacit assumptions and interrogating them. Secondly, shifts in power differentials and thirdly, context specific sense-making. These three overarching processes incorporate the four main theoretical strands the of critical reflection framework, namely: reflective practice, which entails articulating implicit and explicit assumptions; reflexivity, that is, consideration of one’s positionality and how this influences the research process; critical social theory, with a focus on power and power-related discourses and nuances, and; postmodernism which entails deconstruction of thought processes by analysing the role of language in social construction of lived experiences ( Beres & Fook, 2020 ; Fook, 2015 ). Each of these thematic processes is discussed in subsequent paragraphs in a dialogical style where the interviewer’s [JNG] reflections, in first-person narrative style, are weaved into each of the processes.

In the first thematic process, fellows’ narratives revealed various tacit assumptions about their anticipated academic journeys, for example, initial assumptions presented in the ‘pre-COVID-19’ theme in the results section, including the idea that COVID-19 was not a clear and present threat but rather was ‘out there’. There were assumptions that their PhD and postdoctoral journeys would be mundane with the conventional challenges experienced by postgraduate fellows, assumptions about how qualitative research ought to be conducted and how interview interactions would progress in terms of researcher-participant interactions. These assumptions, which may not have been initially apparent, were brought to the fore with the onset of COVID-19, as fellows’ grappled with the realities of conducting qualitative research during a pandemic, as detailed in the results section themes ‘adapting to new realities’ and ‘in retrospect’. These findings resonate with previous studies in which virtual research during the pandemic evolved into the new ‘conventional’( Moises, 2020 ; Sy et al., 2020 ). The transition to virtual data collection necessitated re-visiting the assumption that virtual research would facilitate increased access to participants in light of challenges experienced ( Roberts et al., 2021 ; Vindrola-Padros et al., 2020 ).

As the interviewer and one closely involved in supervising the fellows and day-to-day running of the BRIDGES Programme, I must admit my initial scepticism about running a virtual academic programme during the pandemic and doubts about the quality of PhDs and postdoctoral fellows that would emerge from the programme. Based on my pre-understandings as a doctoral and postdoctoral fellow groomed in the traditional academic model where face-to-face data qualitative methods such as interviews, focus group and participant observation were hailed as the gold standard, it was difficult to fathom how a different model would operate. For several months, I was one of the faculty members who openly promoted this dominant ‘gold standard’ discourse, urging fellows to have face-to-face research as their ‘plan ‘A’ and only consider virtual research (plan ‘B’) as a last resort. In retrospect, I identified this as a projection of my discomfort with the unfamiliar, which I sub-consciously attempted to mask by pushing to remain in my familiar comfort zone.

Meanwhile, conversations about virtual research were taking place among fellows in the cohort and in some of our individual supervision and group fellows’ meetings. These were uncomfortable conversations for me because whereas I might claim some mastery of qualitative research methods and practice, my knowledge of the virtual qualitative research was rather limited. When reality finally dawned and we realised that the options presented by the Human Research Ethics Committee were no research or virtual research, the discourse gradually changed and we began to engage with the prospects of virtual fieldwork.

This culminated in the second thematic process, a shift in power differentials. On one hand, students struggled with power differentials related to their positionalities, as described in the results’ themes, ‘adherence to protocols’ and ‘behind the masks and contract tracing’. On the other hand, students who were more technological astute and quick to learn, began to teach their supervisors about various virtual qualitative research methods and implications for ethical research conduct. What was initially a point of vulnerability became a point of learning and growth for me, an old school qualitative researcher, to the point that I was eventually persuaded that virtual research is legitimate in its own right and a creative alternative to face-to-face research. In retrospect, as the fellows grappled with power differentials during their researcher-participant interactions in the field, I encountered shifts in power differentials in the process of student-supervisor interactions. The loss of control in virtual versus face-to-face interview interactions featured in other studies cited in the introduction ( Rahman et al., 2021 ; Roberts et al., 2021 ). A nuance in our study was the increased sense of agency created by the incognito virtual space where participants freely discussed sensitive topics such as financial hardship, which might have been difficult to address in face-to-face interviews.

In the third thematic process, fellows’ narrative accounts demonstrate several contextual nuances which echo the notion of knowledge as a social construct. Consistent with previous studies, research during COVID-19 entailed researchers re-negotiating their positionalities in virtual spaces and moral dilemmas about returning to face-to-face research as the pandemic eased ( Roberts et al., 2021 ; Vindrola-Padros et al., 2020 ). Further, context-specific meaning making, embodied in narratives of ‘otherness’, conformity, and privilege, pointed to socio-economic, political, and historical discourses in South Africa. Fellows’ experiences included typical occurrences such as power outages (load shedding), mobile telephone network and internet connectivity issues, which were additional contextual layers that shaped meaning making processes. During interview interactions with fellows’, I realised that these occurrences have become normalised in my day-to-day lived experience in South Africa.

Power dynamics had contextual peculiarities in our study. Like Zumba who wondered if it was ‘otherness’ or the field experience of her gatekeeper that played a dominant role in her entry to the field, I reflected on the relative ease with which we interacted around narratives of otherness. I wondered if our rapport was perhaps it was because I was a fellow black woman or because we had developed rapport with the fellows in the course of routine regular interactions. Regardless, these interactions in and of themselves challenged assumptions about power hierarchies in our relational dynamics. The notion of a supervisor-student relationship and/or an interviewer-participant relationship evokes the idea of power imbalances. An interviewer may assume a more powerful position than the participant, as illustrated in Kvale’s (2006) notion of the interview as a manipulative dialogue laden with the interviewer’s hidden agendas, imposed on research participants, with the interviewer monopolising interpretation of participants’ narrative accounts. This argument presumes that positionalities of the interviewer and participants are fixed. However, positionality in our study encompassed multiple, intersecting positionalities namely, BRIDGES team members, supervisors, fellows and co-investigators, colleagues who are shareholders of knowledge co-constructed participatively. This dynamism seemed to equalise power hierarchies and mitigate power, for instance, in fellows’ agency demonstrated in their full involvement in decision-making around the ‘why, what, when, how, who and so what’ of our study, in supervisors being taught how to conduct virtual research by students whom they were supervising, and in team members participating in all parts of the study right from the agenda setting phase.

Strengths and Limitations

Two strengths of this study are the systematic unpacking of lived experiences using a critical reflection lens and the role of participants as co-constructors of knowledge, which yielded various viewpoints in the context of interpersonal interactions and dynamic, intersecting positionalities of the co-authors. The main limitation of this study is that it is based on specific accounts of a small group of participants, which limits generalisability of research findings. Nonetheless, our enquiry was guided by use of the critical reflection approach that supports the notion of co-production of qualitative knowledge, and use of this conceptual framework may strengthen the transferability our findings. This highlights important considerations that are relevant to qualitative research practice.

We attempted to systematically capture critical reflections of the lived experiences of a cohort of postgraduate students amid the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa, and we illustrate the methodological and social responses and implications of their experiences. Guided by critical reflection as an approach to co-production of qualitative knowledge, the study illustrates the complex and nuanced dynamics of adapting to the reality of a new research context, shifting power dynamics and use of digital tools for shaping the researchers’ responses in the COVID pandemic.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge Professor Christopher James Colvin, the Principal Investigator of the BRIDGES Programme. Thank you for your mentorship; for leading by example and demonstrating the power and value of capacity building for the development of scholarship in Africa.

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work is part of the BRIDGES programme, supported by a grant from the Fogarty International Center and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (D43 TW011308).

Jennifer Nyawira Githaiga https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4511-9393

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

  • Annotated Bibliography
  • Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
  • Group Presentations
  • Dealing with Nervousness
  • Using Visual Aids
  • Grading Someone Else's Paper
  • Types of Structured Group Activities
  • Group Project Survival Skills
  • Leading a Class Discussion
  • Multiple Book Review Essay
  • Reviewing Collected Works
  • Writing a Case Analysis Paper
  • Writing a Case Study
  • About Informed Consent
  • Writing Field Notes
  • Writing a Policy Memo
  • Writing a Reflective Paper
  • Writing a Research Proposal
  • Generative AI and Writing
  • Acknowledgments

Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

  • Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
  • Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
  • Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
  • Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
  • Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
  • Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
  • Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
  • Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
  • If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1.  Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

  • Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
  • Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
  • Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2.  Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

  • Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
  • Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
  • Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

  • Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
  • Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
  • Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1)  introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

  • Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
  • Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
  • Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
  • Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
  • Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

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reflection paper about conducting a research

Guide on How to Write a Reflection Paper with Free Tips and Example

reflection paper about conducting a research

A reflection paper is a very common type of paper among college students. Almost any subject you enroll in requires you to express your opinion on certain matters. In this article, we will explain how to write a reflection paper and provide examples and useful tips to make the essay writing process easier.

Reflection papers should have an academic tone yet be personal and subjective. In this paper, you should analyze and reflect upon how an experience, academic task, article, or lecture shaped your perception and thoughts on a subject.

Here is what you need to know about writing an effective critical reflection paper. Stick around until the end of our guide to get some useful writing tips from the writing team at EssayPro — a research paper writing service

What Is a Reflection Paper

A reflection paper is a type of paper that requires you to write your opinion on a topic, supporting it with your observations and personal experiences. As opposed to presenting your reader with the views of other academics and writers, in this essay, you get an opportunity to write your point of view—and the best part is that there is no wrong answer. It is YOUR opinion, and it is your job to express your thoughts in a manner that will be understandable and clear for all readers that will read your paper. The topic range is endless. Here are some examples: whether or not you think aliens exist, your favorite TV show, or your opinion on the outcome of WWII. You can write about pretty much anything.

There are three types of reflection paper; depending on which one you end up with, the tone you write with can be slightly different. The first type is the educational reflective paper. Here your job is to write feedback about a book, movie, or seminar you attended—in a manner that teaches the reader about it. The second is the professional paper. Usually, it is written by people who study or work in education or psychology. For example, it can be a reflection of someone’s behavior. And the last is the personal type, which explores your thoughts and feelings about an individual subject.

However, reflection paper writing will stop eventually with one very important final paper to write - your resume. This is where you will need to reflect on your entire life leading up to that moment. To learn how to list education on resume perfectly, follow the link on our dissertation writing services .

Unlock the potential of your thoughts with EssayPro . Order a reflection paper and explore a range of other academic services tailored to your needs. Dive deep into your experiences, analyze them with expert guidance, and turn your insights into an impactful reflection paper.

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Free Reflection Paper Example

Now that we went over all of the essentials about a reflection paper and how to approach it, we would like to show you some examples that will definitely help you with getting started on your paper.

Reflection Paper Format

Reflection papers typically do not follow any specific format. Since it is your opinion, professors usually let you handle them in any comfortable way. It is best to write your thoughts freely, without guideline constraints. If a personal reflection paper was assigned to you, the format of your paper might depend on the criteria set by your professor. College reflection papers (also known as reflection essays) can typically range from about 400-800 words in length.

Here’s how we can suggest you format your reflection paper:

common reflection paper format

How to Start a Reflection Paper

The first thing to do when beginning to work on a reflection essay is to read your article thoroughly while taking notes. Whether you are reflecting on, for example, an activity, book/newspaper, or academic essay, you want to highlight key ideas and concepts.

You can start writing your reflection paper by summarizing the main concept of your notes to see if your essay includes all the information needed for your readers. It is helpful to add charts, diagrams, and lists to deliver your ideas to the audience in a better fashion.

After you have finished reading your article, it’s time to brainstorm. We’ve got a simple brainstorming technique for writing reflection papers. Just answer some of the basic questions below:

  • How did the article affect you?
  • How does this article catch the reader’s attention (or does it all)?
  • Has the article changed your mind about something? If so, explain how.
  • Has the article left you with any questions?
  • Were there any unaddressed critical issues that didn’t appear in the article?
  • Does the article relate to anything from your past reading experiences?
  • Does the article agree with any of your past reading experiences?

Here are some reflection paper topic examples for you to keep in mind before preparing to write your own:

  • How my views on rap music have changed over time
  • My reflection and interpretation of Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  • Why my theory about the size of the universe has changed over time
  • How my observations for clinical psychological studies have developed in the last year

The result of your brainstorming should be a written outline of the contents of your future paper. Do not skip this step, as it will ensure that your essay will have a proper flow and appropriate organization.

Another good way to organize your ideas is to write them down in a 3-column chart or table.

how to write a reflection paper

Do you want your task look awesome?

If you would like your reflection paper to look professional, feel free to check out one of our articles on how to format MLA, APA or Chicago style

Writing a Reflection Paper Outline

Reflection paper should contain few key elements:

Introduction

Your introduction should specify what you’re reflecting upon. Make sure that your thesis informs your reader about your general position, or opinion, toward your subject.

  • State what you are analyzing: a passage, a lecture, an academic article, an experience, etc...)
  • Briefly summarize the work.
  • Write a thesis statement stating how your subject has affected you.

One way you can start your thesis is to write:

Example: “After reading/experiencing (your chosen topic), I gained the knowledge of…”

Body Paragraphs

The body paragraphs should examine your ideas and experiences in context to your topic. Make sure each new body paragraph starts with a topic sentence.

Your reflection may include quotes and passages if you are writing about a book or an academic paper. They give your reader a point of reference to fully understand your feedback. Feel free to describe what you saw, what you heard, and how you felt.

Example: “I saw many people participating in our weight experiment. The atmosphere felt nervous yet inspiring. I was amazed by the excitement of the event.”

As with any conclusion, you should summarize what you’ve learned from the experience. Next, tell the reader how your newfound knowledge has affected your understanding of the subject in general. Finally, describe the feeling and overall lesson you had from the reading or experience.

There are a few good ways to conclude a reflection paper:

  • Tie all the ideas from your body paragraphs together, and generalize the major insights you’ve experienced.
  • Restate your thesis and summarize the content of your paper.

We have a separate blog post dedicated to writing a great conclusion. Be sure to check it out for an in-depth look at how to make a good final impression on your reader.

Need a hand? Get help from our writers. Edit, proofread or buy essay .

How to Write a Reflection Paper: Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: create a main theme.

After you choose your topic, write a short summary about what you have learned about your experience with that topic. Then, let readers know how you feel about your case — and be honest. Chances are that your readers will likely be able to relate to your opinion or at least the way you form your perspective, which will help them better understand your reflection.

For example: After watching a TEDx episode on Wim Hof, I was able to reevaluate my preconceived notions about the negative effects of cold exposure.

Step 2: Brainstorm Ideas and Experiences You’ve Had Related to Your Topic

You can write down specific quotes, predispositions you have, things that influenced you, or anything memorable. Be personal and explain, in simple words, how you felt.

For example: • A lot of people think that even a small amount of carbohydrates will make people gain weight • A specific moment when I struggled with an excess weight where I avoided carbohydrates entirely • The consequences of my actions that gave rise to my research • The evidence and studies of nutritional science that claim carbohydrates alone are to blame for making people obese • My new experience with having a healthy diet with a well-balanced intake of nutrients • The influence of other people’s perceptions on the harm of carbohydrates, and the role their influence has had on me • New ideas I’ve created as a result of my shift in perspective

Step 3: Analyze How and Why These Ideas and Experiences Have Affected Your Interpretation of Your Theme

Pick an idea or experience you had from the last step, and analyze it further. Then, write your reasoning for agreeing or disagreeing with it.

For example, Idea: I was raised to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight.

Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of research to overcome my beliefs finally. Afterward, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key to a healthy lifestyle.

For example: Idea: I was brought up to think that carbohydrates make people gain weight. Analysis: Most people think that if they eat any carbohydrates, such as bread, cereal, and sugar, they will gain weight. I believe in this misconception to such a great extent that I avoided carbohydrates entirely. As a result, my blood glucose levels were very low. I needed to do a lot of my own research to finally overcome my beliefs. After, I adopted the philosophy of “everything in moderation” as a key for having a healthy lifestyle.

Step 4: Make Connections Between Your Observations, Experiences, and Opinions

Try to connect your ideas and insights to form a cohesive picture for your theme. You can also try to recognize and break down your assumptions, which you may challenge in the future.

There are some subjects for reflection papers that are most commonly written about. They include:

  • Book – Start by writing some information about the author’s biography and summarize the plot—without revealing the ending to keep your readers interested. Make sure to include the names of the characters, the main themes, and any issues mentioned in the book. Finally, express your thoughts and reflect on the book itself.
  • Course – Including the course name and description is a good place to start. Then, you can write about the course flow, explain why you took this course, and tell readers what you learned from it. Since it is a reflection paper, express your opinion, supporting it with examples from the course.
  • Project – The structure for a reflection paper about a project has identical guidelines to that of a course. One of the things you might want to add would be the pros and cons of the course. Also, mention some changes you might want to see, and evaluate how relevant the skills you acquired are to real life.
  • Interview – First, introduce the person and briefly mention the discussion. Touch on the main points, controversies, and your opinion of that person.

Writing Tips

Everyone has their style of writing a reflective essay – and that's the beauty of it; you have plenty of leeway with this type of paper – but there are still a few tips everyone should incorporate.

Before you start your piece, read some examples of other papers; they will likely help you better understand what they are and how to approach yours. When picking your subject, try to write about something unusual and memorable — it is more likely to capture your readers' attention. Never write the whole essay at once. Space out the time slots when you work on your reflection paper to at least a day apart. This will allow your brain to generate new thoughts and reflections.

  • Short and Sweet – Most reflection papers are between 250 and 750 words. Don't go off on tangents. Only include relevant information.
  • Clear and Concise – Make your paper as clear and concise as possible. Use a strong thesis statement so your essay can follow it with the same strength.
  • Maintain the Right Tone – Use a professional and academic tone—even though the writing is personal.
  • Cite Your Sources – Try to cite authoritative sources and experts to back up your personal opinions.
  • Proofreading – Not only should you proofread for spelling and grammatical errors, but you should proofread to focus on your organization as well. Answer the question presented in the introduction.

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2 A Note on Reflexivity and Positionality

Thinking through your motivations for research is an act of reflection . Reflection on one’s motivations and positionality is an essential part of every stage of research. As a consequence, we summarize both reflexivity and positionality here before outlining how to write a great research question.

Reflexivity

The ability to be reflexive is vital to the process of picking a research question, conducting research and analyzing data. To be reflexive is to be able to examine and react to your own emotions, motives, and situation (Cambridge Dictionary, 2021). In social research, this requires the ability to critically recognize your influencers and your influence on others. Holland (1999, p. 464) expounds that reflexivity is the ability to take account of one’s self and the effects of personality or presence of the researcher on the investigation. This means being sensitive to “how relations of power operate in the research process” (Reid, Greaves, & Kirby, 2017, p. 50) and affect your relationship with, and perspective of, the subject. As the subject of social research is complex, dynamic, and sometimes conducted upon populations for which you are removed or have privilege over, taking stock of your own position (with its institutional supports, privileges and limitations) is essential for both ethical (the application of moral principles and professional code of conduct to research) and epistemic (the philosophy concerning the nature of knowledge) reasons. Recognition of ethics ensures that exploitation is not taking place in your research, and epistemology ensures that your own biases are accounted for.

Positionality

A related concept to reflexivity is positionality. Positionality describes one’s worldview and the position one adopts about research and its social and political content (Holmes, 2020, p.1). This involves taking stock of

‘where the researcher is coming from’, [and] concerns ontological assumptions (an individual’s beliefs about the nature of social reality and what is knowable about the world), epistemological assumptions (an individual’s beliefs about the nature of knowledge) and assumptions about human nature and agency (individual’s assumptions about the way we interact with our environment and relate to it) (Holmes, 2020, p.1-2)

Because social research is by nature, rarely value-free, it must account for its motivations. Beliefs, values and interests are shaped by our personal experiences, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality (dis)ability statuses, political allegiances, social class, geographic location, history. These positionalities influence our research interests and topics, the perspectives we adopt in carrying out research, our motivations, how we conduct the research, and the outcomes. Positionality also determines the subject we investigate, the participants we choose and how we conduct research (Holmes, 2020). Hence, if you are uncertain about a research topic or you know the topic but are uncertain about how to narrow it down, it might be worthwhile to think about your positionality. Think about your identity, what you believe about social processes (such as inequality), what you have learned, what your experiences are, and see if that could help you to narrow down your research topic.

Positionality Statements

Intentionally reflecting on your positionality is an important part of the research process. Hence, researchers frequently invest time in developing positionality statements and including them in their papers. A reflection on your positionality is not only important in helping you to decide on a topic, it can also help shape your methodology and interpret your findings. Positionality statements are also important because our identities and lived realities create biases in how we interpret and view the world. An awareness of our biases enhances our credibility and can be fertile for developing our theoretical positions. Below are two examples of positionality statements.

Box 1.1 – Examples of Positionality Statements

  • I position myself as a bricoleur , layering feminist standpoint theory and postcolonial theory, and propose the collaborative data collection and analysis techniques, with particular attention to ethical and cultural sensitivity, using a social constructivist approach to grounded theory…In light of postcolonial critiques of Western researchers and international development, I have often wondered: Am I doing more harm than good? The privilege that accompanies my social location as a White, upper class, Canadian, academic woman means that, despite good intentions, my efforts to support education in postcolonial contexts risk being patronizing, insulting, threatening, imperialist, and recolonizing (Vanner, 2015, p. 1-2)
  • Canada is not my birthplace and English is not my first language. I was born in Nigeria in the 90s and came to Canada as a very young child who spoke no English at all, but rather who conversed fluently in my native Igbo. As far as citizenship, I hold a Nigerian and Canadian passport. If identity is to be so simply ascribed, one would say that I am a Black, Igbo, Nigerian-Canadian woman…The simplicity of identities is also what hides the complexity of bellowing and the illusion of agency in determining the totality of who it is that we are (Odozor, 2020, p.43)

In both examples, the researchers are forthright about what influenced their research and their interpretations of social reality that are influenced by their positionality. As will be discussed in the methodology chapter, there are several advantages to this openness. Being candid about our positionality increases the credibility of our research and provides contexts for users of our research. Reflexivity and positionality also improve the authority and validity of our knowledge (Smith, 1999). We encourage you to develop your own positionality statement.

Writing Positionality Statements

A good positionality statement describes one’s epistemological position (i.e. how one views the world in terms of their philosophy, personal beliefs, theoretical influence and perspectives which guide the research) as well other potential influences on research such as personal characteristics and identities in terms of gender, age, social class, ethnicity and political beliefs (see Holmes, 2020, p. 4). It should also address any predetermined position that the researcher takes (e.g., participant, as an insider or outsider, theoretical influences etc.), the research context and a reflexive opinion about how these might affect the research process. Hence, taking stock of positionality requires understanding how “one’s position in the social hierarchy vis-a-vis other groups potentially ‘limits or broadens’ one’s understanding of others” (Reid, Greaves, & Kirby, 2017, p. 48). This means interrogating what biases you may have of the groups being studied and how your own social location may influence that bias. Consider the following questions: does your disdain for slow customer service perhaps come from your never having to work in the service industry? Or the opposite? Does your idealization of agricultural work perhaps come from your only having done non-physical city labour? By answering questions about why and how you have come to study your topic, you will be clearer about your presuppositions and forthright with your reader about your relationship to the subject matter.

Box 1.2 – How to Write a Positionality Statement

Writing a positionality statement helps you to intentionally reflect on your identity, life history, experiences, values and the things/issues that are important to you. This reflection can help you determine what aspect of your identity is of broader sociological interest, which can be useful in narrowing your research interests. Even if you already know what topic you want to research, a positionality statement can help you to focus your research on issues that are important to who you are or to your political/world views.Here are some things to include in your positionality statement:

  • Identity characteristics (e.g., age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, social class, disability status, citizenship, immigration status, religion, marital status etc.)
  • Life experiences (previous or current job, volunteering activities, membership in advocacy groups etc.)
  • Political, philosophical and theoretical beliefs (lens through which you view and interpret the world)
  • Relationship to phenomena of interest (insider and/or outsider status)

Additional tips:

  • There is no limit on the length of your positionality statement, but try to keep it within a paragraph.
  • Get a friend or close acquaintance to read your draft positionality statement and inform you of any personal detail that you might have overlooked

Cambridge Dictionary (2021). Reflexivity. Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/reflexivity

Holmes, A. G. D. (2020). Researcher Positionality–A Consideration of Its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research–A New Researcher Guide. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 1-10.

Holland, R. (1999). Reflexivity. Human relations, 52(4), 463-484.

Odozor, E, T. (2020). Making peace with movement: dislocation and the Black Diaspora. In G. S. Dei, E. Odozor and A. V. Jimenez (eds.,), Cartographies of Blackness & Black Indigeneities (pp.41-50).  Myers Education Press.

Kirby, S. L., Greaves, L., & Reid, C. (2017). Experience research social change: Methods beyond the mainstream. University of Toronto Press.

Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. University of Otago Press.

Vanner, C. (2015). Positionality at the center: Constructing an epistemological and methodological approach for a western feminist doctoral candidate conducting research in the postcolonial. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 14(4), 1-12.

The way that one’s position in the social hierarchy potentially shapes his/her/their identity and mediates access to power, opportunities and understandings of others.

is a description of an author’s identity, social location, experiences, influences, and philosophy concerning an issue.

Practicing and Presenting Social Research by Oral Robinson and Alexander Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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  • 12 February 2024

China conducts first nationwide review of retractions and research misconduct

  • Smriti Mallapaty

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The reputation of Chinese science has been "adversely affected" by the number of retractions in recent years, according to a government notice. Credit: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty

Chinese universities are days away from the deadline to complete a nationwide audit of retracted research papers and probe of research misconduct. By 15 February, universities must submit to the government a comprehensive list of all academic articles retracted from English- and Chinese-language journals in the past three years. They need to clarify why the papers were retracted and investigate cases involving misconduct, according to a 20 November notice from the Ministry of Education’s Department of Science, Technology and Informatization.

The government launched the nationwide self-review in response to Hindawi, a London-based subsidiary of the publisher Wiley, retracting a large number of papers by Chinese authors. These retractions, along with those from other publishers, “have adversely affected our country’s academic reputation and academic environment”, the notice states.

A Nature analysis shows that last year, Hindawi issued more than 9,600 retractions, of which the vast majority — about 8,200 — had a co-author in China. Nearly 14,000 retraction notices, of which some three-quarters involved a Chinese co-author, were issued by all publishers in 2023.

This is “the first time we’ve seen such a national operation on retraction investigations”, says Xiaotian Chen, a library and information scientist at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, who has studied retractions and research misconduct in China. Previous investigations have largely been carried out on a case-by-case basis — but this time, all institutions have to conduct their investigations simultaneously, says Chen.

Tight deadline

The ministry’s notice set off a chain of alerts, cascading to individual university departments. Bulletins posted on university websites required researchers to submit their retractions by a range of dates, mostly in January — leaving time for universities to collate and present the data.

Although the alerts included lists of retractions that the ministry or the universities were aware of, they also called for unlisted retractions to be added.

reflection paper about conducting a research

More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record

According to Nature ’s analysis, which includes only English-language journals, more than 17,000 retraction notices for papers published by Chinese co-authors have been issued since 1 January 2021, which is the start of the period of review specified in the notice. The analysis, an update of one conducted in December , used the Retraction Watch database, augmented with retraction notices collated from the Dimensions database, and involved assistance from Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse in France. It is unclear whether the official lists contain the same number of retracted papers.

Regardless, the timing to submit the information will be tight, says Shu Fei, a bibliometrics scientist at Hangzhou Dianzi University in China. The ministry gave universities less than three months to complete their self-review — and this was cut shorter by the academic winter break, which typically starts in mid-January and concludes after the Chinese New Year, which fell this year on 10 February.

“The timing is not good,” he says. Shu expects that universities are most likely to submit only a preliminary report of their researchers’ retracted papers included on the official lists.

But Wang Fei, who studies research-integrity policy at Dalian University of Technology in China, says that because the ministry has set a deadline, universities will work hard to submit their findings on time.

Researchers with retracted papers will have to explain whether the retraction was owing to misconduct, such as image manipulation, or an honest mistake, such as authors identifying errors in their own work, says Chen: “In other words, they may have to defend themselves.” Universities then must investigate and penalize misconduct. If a researcher fails to declare their retracted paper and it is later uncovered, they will be punished, according to the ministry notice. The cost of not reporting is high, says Chen. “This is a very serious measure.”

It is not known what form punishment might take, but in 2021, China’s National Health Commission posted the results of its investigations into a batch of retracted papers. Punishments included salary cuts, withdrawal of bonuses, demotions and timed suspensions from applying for research grants and rewards.

The notice states explicitly that the first corresponding author of a paper is responsible for submitting the response. This requirement will largely address the problem of researchers shirking responsibility for collaborative work, says Li Tang, a science- and innovation-policy researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. The notice also emphasizes due process, says Tang. Researchers alleged to have committed misconduct have a right to appeal during the investigation.

The notice is a good approach for addressing misconduct, says Wang. Previous efforts by the Chinese government have stopped at issuing new research-integrity guidelines that were poorly implemented, she says. And when government bodies did launch self-investigations of published literature, they were narrower in scope and lacked clear objectives. This time, the target is clear — retractions — and the scope is broad, involving the entire university research community, she says.

“Cultivating research integrity takes time, but China is on the right track,” says Tang.

It is not clear what the ministry will do with the flurry of submissions. Wang says that, because the retraction notices are already freely available, publicizing the collated lists and underlying reasons for retraction could be useful. She hopes that a similar review will be conducted every year “to put more pressure” on authors and universities to monitor research integrity.

What happens next will reveal how seriously the ministry regards research misconduct, says Shu. He suggests that, if the ministry does not take further action after the Chinese New Year, the notice could be an attempt to respond to the reputational damage caused by the mass retractions last year.

The ministry did not respond to Nature ’s questions about the misconduct investigation.

Chen says that, regardless of what the ministry does with the information, the reporting process itself will help to curb misconduct because it is “embarrassing to the people in the report”.

But it might primarily affect researchers publishing in English-language journals. Retraction notices in Chinese-language journals are rare.

Nature 626 , 700-701 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00397-x

Data analysis by Richard Van Noorden.

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