Toward a Reflection-centered Model of Graduate Social Work Education: Implications for Enhanced Practice

Reflective practice emphasizes the importance of providing practitioners with opportunities to reflect on their work in order to manage the complexity of day-to-day practice. This study found that graduate students who engaged in a reflection-centered educational model reported enhanced practice through reflection-on-action, reflection-in-action, helping clients reflect, holding clients emotionally, tolerating ambiguity, and making ethical decisions. Students identified the institutionalized nature of reflection within their graduate program as a key facilitator of their development of reflective practice capacities, and ultimately their enhanced practice with clients. This underscores the potentially critical role of reflection in the education and training of graduate-level social workers.