Facilitating reflective practice and self-assessment of competence through the use of narratives

摘要

Reflective practice is a skill that is central to nursing students' professional development. Although there is an abundance of literature on the value of reflective practice there are few concrete methods that facilitate self-assessment of competence through the use of reflective practice. One such method is narrative reflection. A nursing narrative is a brief recount of an actual situation or episode in clinical practice that is significant because it resulted in new learning and/or new understanding. Narratives provide important opportunities for uncovering nursing practices that often go unnoticed and a new appreciation of the knowledge and skills of clinical practice. Nursing narratives reveal the richness of the clinical knowledge embedded in practice and provide a way for knowledge and practice to be linked together in meaningful dialogue, promoting interpretive analysis and reflection.