4 Being reflexive with PFMS
There is one final feature of the PFMS heuristic to draw to your attention. The person (P) standing outside the thought bubble is the practitioner (you) again. In this depiction the practitioner is adopting what can be described as a second-order or reflexive perspective Miguel - should this be a glossary term with defintion?on their own practice. Something is second order when it is applied to itself: learning about learning, the practice of practice, reflection on reflection and so on. Questions that arise from this second-order perspective include ones like: Is this P, F, M, S dynamic an adequate way to understand practice? Or: What insights and opportunities emerge from stepping back and viewing myself as part of the system? The term reflexivity Miguel - should this be a glossary term with defintion? is applied to reflective practice) and is described below. At its simplest reflexivity can be understood as a higher-order form of reflection.
Reflection involves pausing to consider what is being done in terms of the thinking and actions by an individual or group and exploring the possible consequences for all involved or potentially affected by an action. Reflexivity starts to operate when in one’s daily practices you move beyond reflection and interpretation (first-order processes) to reflection on reflection or interpretation of interpretation (second-order processes). Reflexivity concerns both what and why (see Ison, 2018).
A key aspect to reflexivity is seeing yourself as always part of, as well as responsible for the framing of, situations and acting with awareness that this is always the case. Reflection and reflexivity matter in regard to managing and achieving change with STiP.
The implications of understanding your systems practice as a practitioner–context relationship and other key aspects of the heuristic are considered in the second part of this course.