ABSTRACT
The genre of critical reflection is an increasingly popular form of assessment in higher education. Framed as ‘real-life’, ‘authentic’ and ‘real-world’, tasks often assess how students’ understanding of theory informs their practice, requiring students to relate their experiential understandings to theoretical knowledge. The processes by which students engage with these different knowledge forms, however, remain underexplored. This chapter draws on the LCT concept of ‘constellations’, which explore how various ideas and practices are related together, to analyse the implicit values constructed in critical reflection essays and reflective journals. The chapter reveals how successful students engage with the personal in their critical reflections but reflect values privileged in their subject areas. By making these constellations visible, the chapter shows how students align themselves with these values and demonstrate their transformation from students to fully-fledged practitioners in the field.
