Reflective practice and mediator learning: A current review

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21219
• Date: 01 September 2018
• Author: Rochelle Arms Almengor
• Published date: 01 September 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Reflective practice and mediator learning:

A current review

Rochelle Arms Almengor

John Jay College of Criminal Justice-City

University of New York

Correspondence

Rochelle Arms Almengor, Assistant Professor,

John Jay College of Criminal Justice-City

University of New York, Department of

Sociology, Dispute Resolution Program, 524 West

59th St. New York, NY 10019.

Email: rochellearms@gmail.com

Mediator interest in reflective practice, a systematic pro-

cess by which we think about or experience what we are

doing in practice and why, is on the rise, evidenced by

increased articles and professional organizations support-

ing its use. This growing interest signals its potential for

integration into the mediation field, similar to its trajec-

tory in more developed helping professions. By review-

ing relevant literature and practice, this article defines and

discusses reflective practice as it pertains to mediator

learning and development, examines its strengths and

challenges, and encourages needed research and practice

in this area.

1|INTRODUCTION

Reflective practice is one of several learning orientations that consider a practitioner's experience

(learning through doing) as a legitimate and effective way of generating knowledge and theories. As

such, it is an epistemology of practice, a theory of knowledge that relies on practice as its method of

discovery and validation. As with similar professions that have integrated its use, such as psycho-

therapy, education, and social work, reflective practice is especially relevant to the challenges of

mediation, thus begging the need for mediators to examine its possible applications, strengths, and

weaknesses. As we will see later, interest in reflective practice seems to be growing among media-

tors, but it is not the norm within mediation practice and training, and many mediators are inaccu-

rately, or not at all, familiar with it.

In its most basic sense, reflective practice can be defined as a systematic and conscious process

by which we think about or experience what we are doing in practice, and why. “Systematic and

conscious”are the salient characteristics that set it apart from simple reflecting on one's practice. In

this article, I will describe in detail the levels and varieties of reflective practice, and how these con-

nect to the learning process.

Received: 13 September 2017 Revised: 16 March 2018 Accepted: 18 March 2018

DOI: 10.1002/crq.21219

© 2018 Association for Conflict Resolution and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 2018;36:21–38. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/crq 21

As mediators often work alone in situations of uncertainty, with no two cases alike, some level

of self-reliance in learning from practice is required. Many of us take “learning,”however we may

define it, for granted. However, while it is virtually impossible to learn nothing from one's practice,

learning how to (consciously) learn is not a skill most of us are taught. This article will start by

defining learning and, subsequently, explain reflective practice as a conscious learning orientation

that can be taught and replicated. It will focus on the professionally oriented reflective practice

developed by scholar Donald Schön and also describe deeper and broader levels of reflection,

known as reflexivity and critical reflection. Understanding levels of reflection is important for medi-

ators because the degree to which one's practice creates meaningful learning and transformation

depends upon the level and type of reflection in which one engages. My aim is to provide mediation

practitioners, trainers, and researchers a foundation and impetus to pursue further experimentation

and study on reflective practice in our field.

2|MEDIATOR LEARNING

The meaning of the term “learning”is easily taken for granted because it is so commonly used in

our daily life. However, as education and psychology literature teach us, learning can refer to a few

different things, and precision in our terminology is important if we aim to develop best practices to

facilitate learning for both new and experienced mediators.

Learning can refer to receiving knowledge already formulated by someone else, as in the tradi-

tional “banking”concept of learning renounced by Paolo Freire (1986); this is the idea of students

as containers to be filled. It can also refer to making meaning out of one's own experience or out of

new knowledge, and finally, it can mean testing ideas that are relevant to problems. Educationists

more often refer to learning as a process with developmental stages (Knowles, 1990). Moon (2005)

describes learning as a dynamic and “flexible network of ideas and feelings”in which old and new

ideas affect and transform one another. She tells us, “the process of learning is not, therefore, about

the accumulation of material of learning, but about the process of changing conceptions”

(pp. 16–17). Change in behavior as an outcome or as evidence of learning seems to be a common

theme in all definitions, as well as interaction with the environment. Learning seems to be largely

connected to our interactions both with other people and with external structures. For instance, Kurt

Lewin's (1946) Gestalt theories of learning emphasized that learning occurred through changes in

two forces: the structure surrounding the individual and the individual's internal needs or motiva-

tions. With respect to reflective practice, understanding that learning is a social process means that

collective reflection is as important for mediators as individual reflection about one's cases

(Collin & Karsenti, 2011; Hoshmand, 1994, p. 136; Picard & Jull, 2011).

The transformative characteristic of learning is akin to the change process described by John

Dewey (1938), who saw learning as a pairing of old experience with new knowledge in order to for-

mulate a new judgment about whatever is being experienced or observed. Psychologists talk about

the transformation of one's schema, their word for one's cognitive organization, synonymous with

Mezirow's meaning perspectives or frame of reference (1990, 1997), or “psychological orientations”

(Deutsch, 2011). Schema, as defined by Hoshmand (1994) in her work about reflective professional

psychology, is “a modifiable information structure that represents knowledge of the interrelation-

ships between events, objects, and situations that we encounter”(p. 133). We view new experiences

through the filter of our existing schemas. For efficiency's sake, our brain likes to rely on preexisting

or readily accessible schemas. However, dependence on readily accessible schemas, or automated

processing, stands in the way of engaged perception and creativity (Hoshmand, 1994, p. 134). The

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