Reflexivity as method
Jan Fook
Centre for Professional Development, La Trobe University, Bundoora VIC
Abstract
As an educator of social work professionals, I have developed the use of the reflective approach for both learning and research (Fook 1996), and have become an advocate of the importance of reflectivity in the practice of professionals. At the same time, I am also aware that the notion of reflexivity has taken on growing importance in the research world. I am often asked about my understanding of the difference between reflectivity and reflexivity. I have been guilty in the past of happily conflating the two ideas, assuming that differences simply arose out of the separate traditions in which they had been fostered. Recently, my more glib response has been to distinguish between reflexivity as a position, and reflectivity as a general process. At the heart of this differentiation is the thinking that a position of reflexivity, of an ability to locate yourself in the picture, is complemented by a process of reflectivity.
Reflectivity, developed from the ideas of Argyris and Schon (1976), is the process in which you are able to reflect upon the ways your own assumptions and actions influence a situation, and thus change your practice as a direct result of this reflective process. In this way of thinking, reflectivity becomes a type of research method, one which allows a practitioner to research her or his own practice (or that of others) in order to change or improve it.
This way of researching practice reflectively is becoming increasingly accepted in the professions, yet I wonder if this more practical application of reflexivity does in fact have major application in social research more broadly.
Ironically, this type of thinking actually throws the notions of reflectivity and reflexivity into closer dependence, since it raises questions for me about the uses of reflexivity, of the ability to locate yourself as researcher squarely into the research act, to the ultimate point where this reflexive positioning and the reflective process it entails, becomes the research act itself.
A great deal of my understanding of reflexivity, however, up to this point, had been that its applicability seemed mainly confined to a discussion of the importance of reflexivity to epistemological concerns (Mauthner & Doucet 1998), to recognising the ways in which researcher subjectivity influences researcher choices and interpretations. It seemed to be flagged more as a consideration to be taken into account in the planning of research, possibly a safeguard to apply in the analysis of data lest interpretations be too 'subjective', rather than a stance integral to the research process itself. It seemed perhaps interesting and clever to 'navel gaze' reflexively afterwards, but of little practical consequence before and during the undertaking of research?
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