Thinking more deeply: reclaiming reflection in professional practice

As a lecturer in higher education, now at The Open University, and a former police officer, I have delivered policing degrees to police practitioners and seen first hand how powerful reflective practice can be in supporting the development of professional practice. 

I’ve experienced it as a practitioner in operational policing, observed it through learners engaged in professional study, and taught it directly as a lecturer. It does far more than improve performance “next time” – it can be transformative, reshaping how practitioners think about their role, their decisions, and their values. Too often, though, its potential is lost. Engagement becomes superficial, particularly when reflection is tied to assessment, and it slips into being just another task to complete. I care deeply about supporting practitioners to develop their craft, which is why it is frustrating to see reflective practice reduced to a perfunctory exercise rather than embraced as a genuinely meaningful learning tool.

Many organisations claim to value self-directed development, but the reality often depends on workload and culture - two aspects that are not always supportive. Individuals need time and space to engage fully. While the principles of reflection go back to the work of Dewey (1933), Kolb (1984), Schon (1992) amongst others, reflective practice has increasingly been tied to organisational processes, performance and assessment. In policing it has even been tied to an outcome of disciplinary management procedures - the Police (Conduct) Regulations (2020) introduced reforms to the police complaints system that allowed resolution through reflection and learning. 

Across the professional spectrum reflective practice is talked about a lot, but usually in terms of how to complete the task of using reflective practice rather than learning a process for ongoing development. People talk in terms of not having time to complete a task or they say that they already reflect naturally. Others say they find it difficult to reflect, and yet others blame their superficial engagement on the culture of the workplace. These are all real issues, but they have helped to sideline genuine progress in providing tools that develop professional learning.

However, I sense that this transactional and instrumental approach is being rejected and that narratives are emerging that move reflective practice back towards a genuinely transformative process. By embracing such narratives reflection is linked to ideas of self, to the context in which operational action takes place and to power relations that exist in an encounter. Thus, individuals will gain deeper, more nuanced understandings of their practice; they will be able to contribute to wider debates, to become reflexive, autonomous professionals – professionals who are not only capable of critiquing their own assumptions, but who can also engage constructively with the complexities and uncertainties of contemporary practice.

So, how do we develop the process to make it attractive and useful for busy professionals? Firstly, we need to show the value of reflective practice so that individuals know why they should engage, and we need to ensure that there is sufficient and appropriate scaffolding that supports the individual in learning the process. Reflective practice should be seen as a progression where learning about reflective practice is in tandem with learning about professional work. It has layers that are built on over time.

Beyond simply describing events, it is essential to engage with analysis, and it is the depth of this analysis that creates real opportunities for change. If a practitioner moves too quickly from analysis to reflective evaluation, then opportunities are lost. On one level an individual will look back on an event describing what happened, what they felt, what went well, what not so well and what they might have done differently. This is about self-awareness and a good starting point that allows for action planning. It includes thinking about what I will do ‘next time’. It is the beginning of a cognitive map, a bank of resources that can be drawn on in the future.

The second layer is where there is potential for transformative change.

It also involves considering their actions against ethical standards reflecting not only on how events unfolded but also on alternative courses of action that could have been taken and the potential consequences of those choices.

These ideas sit at the heart of work‑based learning and are deliberately built into programmes such as the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA) and the Degree Holders Entry Programme (DHEP), where learning is inseparable from operational practice. Within these contexts, reflective assessment provides a structured space for practitioners to interrogate real experiences, connect theory with professional judgement, and develop confidence in navigating complexity, uncertainty and ethical challenge. When approached as a developmental process rather than a compliance task, reflection supports the gradual formation of professional identity and the cultivation of reflexive capability over time. This is particularly important in policing, where practitioners must continually make sense of their actions and decisions in dynamic environments, and where well‑designed reflective assessment can play a crucial role in supporting meaningful, sustained professional learning (Salter, Smith and Moss, 2025).

Stephen Moss

Stephen has over thirty years’ experience in policing education, beginning as an operational officer before moving into police training. For the past fifteen years, he has worked in Higher Education and joined the Open University in 2019, where he now serves as Qualification Lead for the Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP). Prior to this, Stephen worked at Liverpool John Moores University as Head of Policing - Undergraduate and Postgraduate Programmes. During this time, he collaborated closely with the College of Policing, contributing to the development of the Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) and the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA) curriculum.