Examining the Impact of Dialogic Learning on Critically Reflective Practice

Area of Science:

• Education
• Health Professions Education
• Interprofessional Education

Background:

• Critical reflection is essential for professional practice, but teaching it effectively remains a challenge.
• Existing research highlights dialogue's potential for critical reflection, yet guidance for translating this into practice is limited.
• This study addresses the need to bridge the gap between critically reflective ways of seeing and critically reflective ways of doing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of dialogic learning on critically reflective practice compared to discussion-based learning.
• To explore the integration of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory with critical reflection and critical disability studies in an educational intervention.
• To determine if dialogic learning can foster critically reflective practice in health profession students.

Main Methods:

• An experimental study involving interprofessional groups of medical, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology students.
• Participants were randomly assigned to either a reflective discussion or a critically reflective dialogue condition focused on a pediatric case.
• Hierarchical logistic regression was used to analyze the critically reflective quality of written clinical letters.

Main Results:

• Sentences were significantly more likely to be critically reflective in the dialogue condition (0.26) than in the discussion condition (0.11).
• Clinical letters were also significantly more likely to be critically reflective in the dialogue condition (0.26) compared to the discussion condition (0.04).
• A higher proportion of critically reflective sentences correlated positively with the critically reflective quality of the entire letter.

Conclusions:

• Dialogic learning effectively prepared students to engage in critically reflective practice.
• Students in the dialogue condition demonstrated a collaborative process of critical reflection that translated into individual written work.
• This study underscores the value of Bakhtin's dialogic theory in advancing critical pedagogy for professional development.