An action research exploring how to promote supervisor-trainees’ reflective competence in Guangdong, China

ABSTRACT To promote student’s reflective competence benefits all learning, practice and research. The researcher who is also the supervisor has initiated action research on her own practice in a social work supervisor training programme in Guangzhou, China studying how to improve supervision in promoting supervisor trainee’s reflective ability for reflective practice. Reflection is an empowering process liberating from dogmatic thinking and generating solution from within an individual rather than from external experts or authorities. Yet supervisor trainee feared of being trapped in reflection deadlock and running “alien” in a collective culture was identified as a hindrance to reflection promotion. This article reveals how supervisor trainees perceive and perform reflection in Mainland Chinese context. Supervisor trainees’ reflective performance and evaluation of different supervision strategies (also regarded as reflection channels) will be discussed. Implications and suggestions on how to better promote reflection will be drawn.