In 2004, with only one fully registered teacher in the early childhood centre where this investigation is set, a question arose as to how five non-registered teachers could be guided through individual programmes of registration advice and guidance. This investigation explores a group approach to early childhood teacher registration, where five registering teachers engaged in written reflections and discussion with their registration tutor, who was also the researcher. The teachers used practitioner inquiry as they explored their own practice and the practice of the team. The researcher used practitioner research to build on the teacher's inquiries. Individual written reflections and group discussions began to highlight differences in the ways teacher's interpreted practice. As part of its communication processes the group regularly compared and categorised individual reflections. These general themes were made public and shared with the group, using a process that this research refers to as the common anonymous voice'. The key findings from this investigation concern the role practitioner action research played in the communication of the group. Discussion and written reflections were shown to provide the group with alternative forms of communication. As tensions and challenges regarding group practice emerged in the discussions, teachers began to rely more on the reflective writing process to articulate their own professional philosophies. Shifts in group dynamics were highlighted as the group moved from the need to agree, through to an acceptance of diversity. Individual teaching beliefs and practices were seen as contributing to the collective process of teaching and learning. The reflexive action research framework developed in this study aligns itself with sociocultural notions of learning and development. Links are made with the professional development of the individual teacher and the collective process of the registration group.

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This thesis is a practitioner based inquiry into how I can support the development of reflective dispositions within Early Childhood Studies (ECS) undergraduate students. The students involved in this research were all level 4 (first year, new entrants) who started their studies at an English University in September 2009. The study takes a Social Constructivist approach through pedagogical action research and was informed by a Reflective Methodology. My own beliefs regarding ontology lie in the notion that there is no one truth; that is multifaceted and that truths are ‘socially constructed multiple realities’ (Patton, 2002, p. 134). This is what Denzin and Lincoln (2008, p. 32) refer to as ‘relativist ontology’. It used qualitative methods to explore my own experiences and the experiences of students in establishing an understanding of expectations to use reflective practice to inform their developing professionalism. My own reflective journey has been a central part of this project and has enabled me to identify how my practice can be improved to enhance the development of a reflective culture within the Centre for Early Childhood in my institution. Reflective lenses of self, colleagues, students and literature have been used to create an understanding of the existing landscape of reflective practice within this particular context. Focus Group Discussion Forums (FGDF); reflective accounts; peer observation and Post-it Note response were all methods used to collect the data. A grounded theory approach to the data analysis was used which was both an inductive and deductive process. The findings of this research have been both enlightening and confirmatory. The pedagogical cultural differences between most new ECS students’ previous educational experiences, and those introduced when they start their programme in HE, entails a shift from a predominantly transmission approach to one of transformative learning. This requires an understanding of the tutor team to create an environment that is conducive to supporting students through this transition that is underpinned by Social Constructivist concepts. The data highlights that strategies already used within the ECS programme are complementary to this transition; however, it also highlights that tutors’ assumptions about students’ capabilities to demonstrate reflective practice is sometimes unreasonable. This research journey and the findings from the data of this project have enabled me to identify some key considerations when supporting the development of reflective dispositions within ECS students and in enabling a ‘Reflective Community of Early Childhood Practice’. These considerations include: • Transitional needs of students • Becoming professionally self-aware and developing a professional artistry • The significance of practical experience and its relationship to theoretical perspectives • Opportunities for collaboration within a community of practice The other significant finding from this inquiry is that of self-discovery and identifying that my own reflective limitations require consideration. My adaptation of Brookfield’s (1995) four lens theory, which includes a new ‘fifth dimension’ that uses a ‘peripheral socio-cultural lens’ to widen and enrich the critical reflective process, has been created. Post viva voce examination has prompted an additional section to this thesis (Section 6). This post script is a critically reflective piece from my perspective as a researcher. Applying my own theory of a wider perspective through a Socio Cultural peripheral lens (Figure 7) which has allowed me to explicitly communicate the significance of this project and demonstrate the relationships between the arguments I make and the impact of these within the early childhood sector and within extended fields of professional practice.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöker hur behandlare reflekterar över sitt bemötande av individer som missbrukar cannabis som primär drog. Vidare undersöks hur behandlaren individanpassar behandlingen för ungdomarna samt vilka egenskaper som är bra för en behandlare att besitta. Studien utgår från den hermeneutiska forskningstraditionen och har en kvalitativ ansats. Undersökningen gjordes av semistrukturerade intervjuer med hjälp av fyra behandlare inom missbruksvården som arbetar medungdomar som främst brukar cannabis. Studien utgickifrån Moira von Wrights relationella teori om det relationella perspektivet som är ihop vävt med Donald Schöns teori om den reflekterande praktikern. Resultatet visar på att ett gott bemötandet gentemot klienten är viktigt för relationsskapandet. Detär avgörande för behandlaren att visar respekt och empati för klienten samt att inge förtroende, struktur och att behandlingen är individanpassad. Hos behandlaren är reflektionav stor betydelse för att denne ska utvecklas

Humans make sense of experience through narrative and stories. ?Narratives are a primary embodiment of our understanding of the world, our experience, and ultimately ourselves? (Kerby, 1991, p. 3). Story enlarges our capacity to understand our actions and our values and lets us talk about them (Novak, 1978, p. 63). Story is a ?mode of thinking and feeling? that facilitates people?s ability to ?create a version of the world in which, psychologically, they can envisage a place for themselves?a personal world? (Bruner, 1996, p. 39). It is also vital to the realization of that world. This study is a storyteller-teacher-researcher?s personal quest to find a good teacher. The stories are my looking. I am telling a story of looking for a good teacher that implicitly demonstrates how narratives facilitate a deeper understanding of good teaching. I pursue the quest simultaneously in three realms that blend with, enrich, and enlarge each other: recovering from illness, journeying around the world, and reflecting on teaching practice. The stories in this work are showing the capacity of narrative imagining in human experience. Through the stories re-presented here, I made discoveries that are very important to being a good teacher. Yet those discoveries cast a shadow across something else that is necessary to being a good teacher and kept it hidden from my view. It was not until I had almost completed the storying process of telling, reflecting, and discovering that the shadow receded and that which is so integral to being a good teacher was revealed.

This study explores an EFL practitioner’s teaching life story, with a focus on the development of personal and professional identities, and on the rationale for teaching principles and practices within a Japanese socio-educational context. The study is grounded firmly in the belief that “in understanding something so intensely personal as teaching, it is critical we know about the person the teacher is” (Goodson, 1992, p. 234). As a single participant study this thesis places particular emphasis on the importance of subjective and interpretive insights and understandings as opposed to the generalizability and objectivity of knowledge claims embodied in more traditional approaches to research in the field of TESOL. To elicit the participant’s teaching life story I used a taped monologue technique, whereby the speaker, without the presence of an interviewer, is in complete control of topic selection and has the freedom to determine the temporal and sequential course of their narrative. The resulting two-hour monologue is the primary data for the study, and working within a narrative research framework I analyzed the story for critical incidents and teaching perspectives that can be interpreted as having informed the participant’s practicing professional identity, which can be defined as a set of values, principles and practices which guide an individual’s present teaching philosophy and future directions. Through the lens of the Japanese socio-educational context I focus on the unifying themes of teacher development and education, critical cultural knowledge, humanism, and second language (L2) only classroom policy. Furthermore, I explore the narrative thread that runs through the participant’s story, connecting past and present experiences with future teaching life directions and goals as the narrator takes the opportunity to articulate the rationale behind her main principles and practices, and in so doing underscores her practicing professional identity in a way that demonstrates a strong sense of the narrator’s purpose, values, efficacy and self-worth. As such, this process engages the narrator not only in a meaningful and coherent narrative account of professional development, but also in the process itself of professional development as it demonstrates potentialities for self-revelation, affirmation, and even transformation. This thesis offers a distinctive contribution to the field of TESOL educational research in three particular ways. First, in exploring the sources of a teacher’s beliefs and practicing professional identity, it offers an exemplar of how to undertake interpretive research as reflective practice and professional development. Secondly, it widens our understanding of conducting single participant case studies in TESOL education. This thesis also points the way forward to possible research using an innovative taped monologue technique with other individual teacher case studies that can then contribute to building a body of knowledge in the field.

In this thesis I develop a new, wider and richer understanding of wellbeing, through developing a process of reflective practice, with healthcare professionals within their challenging work culture. As a healthcare chaplain, having witnessed poor staff morale, I conducted a critical examination of NHS wellbeing reports and strategies, which revealed an understanding of staff wellbeing that ironically follows simply a health model. Challenging this, I argue for a broader interpretation of wellbeing that, in addition to focusing on health, is more holistic, relational and contextual. I develop reflective practice to nurture this, the use of which extends in healthcare beyond education and professional development. In my action research, knowledge was generated through ethnographic participation and observation, over a year, reflecting as chaplain with eight teams of healthcare professionals. This used my simple and memorable HELP Wellbeing Reflection Cycle (building on Kolb's (1984) model of experiential learning) that combines reflection on work and personal development. My project also responds to Rolfe's call (2014) for greater use in healthcare of Schön's (1980) "reflection-in-action". Building on these works, I develop reflection for healthcare professionals to nurture their wellbeing. My encouragement of the participants to self-facilitate their own reflective groups, when familiar with this method of reflection, is also a contribution to reflective practice, healthcare and the chaplain's role. Thematic data analysis emerged from the reflexive field notes of our shared experience as co-reflective practitioners. The themes include healthcare professionals making the human connection between themselves and with their patients. They also value the space to reflect together, realising their desire for team support and a shared goal, as well as job satisfaction in this demanding culture. These themes, I argue, are consistent with the broader definitions of wellbeing, giving them the opportunity to be both a healthcare professional and human. Further data analysis also reveals consistency with wider wellbeing interpretations (including personal wellbeing measurements and data from the Office for National Statistics (2014, 2015)). I develop the role of chaplain as the healthcare professionals' co-reflector, sharing their reflective space as a pastoral encounter and a source for learning. This combines the images of "empty handed" (Swift, 2009) "welcoming guest" and "mutual hospitality" (Walton, M., 2012). I offer to national healthcare the wider understanding of wellbeing, and the value of creating provision for reflective space to nurture it, in the care of healthcare professionals. This research offers the potential for exciting further developments in a wider constituency both in and beyond healthcare.

This qualitative study considers the way in which the 6-Part-Story-Method (6PSM) process, drawn from the field of Dramatherapy, can be used to explore, interpret and enhance the professional practice of those working in the broad context of education. Evolving from social constructivist/constructionist and relativist perspectives, the study explores the concepts of reflection, critical reflection and reflexivity as socially constructed acts. This was a longitudinal study consisting of two stages; Stage 1 involved a number of practical sessions exploring the 6PSM model with Image Theatre techniques over the period of a year. Stage 2 involved an evaluative session a year after the cessation of Stage 1. There were four participants in the study all of whom work within the broad education sector. The place of story creation, telling, listening and sharing is discussed as a core way of individuals and groups making sense of their experiences. In particular, the 6PSM process is used to provide a structural and theoretical base to the methodological process undertaken in the study, and as the key component in the development of embodied reflexive practice. Furthermore, connections are made to the development of embodied, reflexive learning experiences created by techniques adapted from the theory and practice of both Image Theatre and Dramatherapy. Results from the study suggest that the use of the 6PSM as a vehicle for embodied and reflexive learning may be a viable and valuable creative process for educational practitioners to engage with. Further, the results have led to the connection of story, reflexivity and applied theatre to produce a 3-dimensional model of embodied and reflexive practice that has 6PSM at its core. Implications from the research relate to organisational policy changes to incorporate opportunities for the development of 6PSM processes within groups, and changes to initial training for practitioners within the caring professions to incorporate the model of embodied, reflexive practice using 6PSM.

Remotely Sustainable focuses on a specific line of work that could be called 'remote Indigenous architecture'. I define this as architecture for Aboriginal clients who are the traditional owners of their homelands, where these projects are built. This context is critical because the issues I discuss may be relevant to other Indigenous communities in Australia. However, the customs, culture, bureaucracy and conditions mean I must caution anyone in applying any of these ideas to another community without deep consideration of and good consultation with that community. The context also extends to the broader framework of federal and state governance. As architects and citizens it seems there is little we can do to impact on these systems, but if the government and agencies do not make appropriate decisions, there is little chance of improving the outcomes for Aboriginal people. Working in this field as an architect is extremely hard. There are almost insurmountable problems that arise from ineffective government agencies, difficulties in communicating with clients, extreme distances to travel, physical discomfort to be endured and very little in the way of fees to perform these tasks. The difficulties begin at the consultancy stage and continue throughout the project until occupation by the clients. There is great difficulty in ensuring that the builders and tradespeople do their jobs properly and ensuring they return to sites to fix defective work is problematic. The budgets allocated to Indigenous housing projects are often well below that required to produce buildings that satisfy the clients' needs and expectations. Finally, there is little appreciation of the work that architects do in these communities, possibly because in some cases architects do their job badly. This Master of Architecture Project uses case study buildings by iredale pedersen hook architects to reveal some of the difficulties faced when delivering these projects, in order to encourage the development of better solutions in the future.

The purpose of this study was to examine how nurses' critical reflective practice, education level, and moral distress related to their work engagement. This is an area of study relevant to nursing, given documented United States Registered Nurse (RN) experiences of job related distress and work dissatisfaction, and the nursing shortage crisis. Nurses are central players in the provision of quality health care. There is need for better understanding of RNs' work engagement and factors that may enhance their work experience. A theoretical framework of critical reflective practice was developed and examined in this study.A non-experimental, descriptive, correlational design was used to examine the relationships among four study variables: critical reflective practice, education level, moral distress, and work engagement. The purposive sample consisted of 28 intensive care unit RNs (ICU-RNs) from three separate ICUs (medical, neonatal, and pediatric) in a 355-bed Southwest magnet-designated hospital. Measures of the key variables were as follows: (1) Critical Reflective Practice Questionnaire (CRPQ) developed for this study; (2) a subscale of Mary C. Corley's Moral Distress Scale; (3) Education level measured as the highest nursing degree earned to practice as a RN; and (4) the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. All instruments demonstrated adequate reliability and validity.Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses indicated support for the theoretical framework: There was a negative direct relationship between moral distress and work engagement, a positive direct relationship between critical reflective practice and work engagement, and moral distress and critical reflective practice, together, explained 47% of the variance in work engagement. Additionally, in the NICU, results indicated a positive direct relationship between increased educational level and critical reflective practice. Results also indicated that moral distress was a clinically significant issue for ICU-RNs in this sample.Strategies to promote critical reflective practice and reduce moral distress are recommended. Additionally, the findings support continued study of critical reflective practice and moral distress, and the role of education level, in nurses' work engagement. Research goals include continued study of the theoretical framework in larger study samples and in reference to additional explanatory factors.