Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Breaking Down Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle and Its Important Stages (Examples Included)

If you are a college scholar or a working professional in fields like healthcare or education, you might be familiar with the Gibbs’ reflective cycle. It is a framework which is commonly used for deep understanding and personal growth. When talking about learning from experiences, this model becomes more crucial for personal growth.

In this blog, you will get to explore Gibbs’ reflective cycle from top to bottom. Let’s start by understanding its definition.

What is Gibbs’ Reflective Style?

The person who is responsible for this formulation is Graham Gibbs, who developed this model in the year 1988. The reason Gibbs developed a reflective cycle was due to the challenges he faced. When working on his book ‘Learning by Doing’, he identified the need for a structured process to learn from experience. At that time, he invented this reflective style. 

He understood the importance of critical thinking and continuous improvement in every field. But such results require few steps. So, Gibbs introduced the reflective cycle in his book; he separated this model into 6 stages. The reason for dividing the model into different steps is to give a structured way to follow the process. You can see the Gibbs’ reflective cycle stages mentioned below:

Six Stages of Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

1. Description
2. Feelings
3. Evaluation
4. Analysis
5. Conclusion
6. Action Plan

There are several fields where this model is employed by professionals to improve critical thinking ability and enhance personal growth. If you are thinking about using this model, you would need to understand its various stages. To confidently incorporate these stages, let’s have a closer look at them. 

First Stage: Description

This first stage of Gibbs’ reflective style highlights the situation or events that you are dealing with. It mainly describes a clear definition of what happened, when it happened and who was involved when it happened. In simple terms, it helps to determine the circumstances, timing and the individual involved in the incident. To understand the use of this stage in real practice, you can look at the example mentioned below

Example: My family has planned to go on a vacation, and I was very excited to join them. Due to my office work, my leave got cancelled. My HR reached out and told me that it was very difficult to approve my leave request.

Here are some helpful questions you can use to comprehend this stage:

• What Happened?
• When Happened?
• Where It Happened?
• Who Was Present?
• What Did You and Others Do?
• What Was the Outcome?
• Why Were You There?

Ask these questions to yourself to get a deep understanding.

Second Stage: Feelings

This stage includes emotions you have experienced before and after the incident. It is useful to understand both sides, positive and negative. By using this step, you can describe the awareness regarding the event. Look at the example below to get an understanding of how this stage works in real-life circumstances:

Example: I started feeling very bad after my leave application got rejected. At that time, I was continuously thinking about how I would go with my family on a vacation. I tried a lot, but HR strictly rejected my leave.

Questions you can use for this stage for better understanding:

• How were you feeling when the event started?
• How did you feel and what did you think during the experience? 
• How did you feel and what did you think after the experience? 
• Did you hear or feel anything that surprised you? 

Third Stage: Evaluation

In this stage, you examine the effect of the incident. Here you experience the aspect of the event and ask yourself - Was the incident good or bad? With this question, you can determine both the positive and negative sides of the circumstance. Let’s understand this with an example:

Example: Since my leaves are not approved, I started feeling sad, but at that time my one colleagues helped me. He said that this is not the only time to plan vacations; you can also plan for other days. After hearing these words, I started feeling good.

Useful question you can use for this stage:

• What went well? 
• What didn’t go well? 
• Why didn’t your plan work? 
• How did you react to the situation? 
• How did other people react?

Fourth Stage: Analysis

At this stage, you need to start thinking critically. Instead of just understanding and feeling for the incident, you will try to identify the root cause. Here you will examine different aspects to reach the right point. Let’s understand with an example:

Example: After a few days of my holiday being cancelled, I realised that the reason for this is the average performance of the team. I understood that the decision was taken rightly at that time. Next time, I will keep this in mind and then plan a holiday with my family.

Here are some questions you might find useful for this stage:

• Why did your clients or teammates behave in the way they did? 
• Why did you behave in the way you did? 
• What ideas or theories are you aware of which apply to this situation? 
• Do these theories help you make more sense of what happened?

Fifth Stage: Conclusion

Once you examine the four stages mentioned above, this step involves summarising everything you learned. In this stage, you have to find the improvement areas and create future actions by connecting them with past knowledge. The example below will help you understand this stage clearly:

Example: After evaluating the incident regarding my holiday, I understood my performance and key areas where I need improvement. In future, I will surely focus on myself and enhancing my skills.

Best questions for the conclusion stage:

• How could this have been a more positive experience for everyone involved? 
• How, specifically, has the community benefited? 
• What factors may have impacted the clients’ views or experiences of the project? 
• How does this project address their needs?

Sixth Stage: Action Plan 

After going through all the stages, this is the final step where you will create an execution plan. In this stage, you will apply all the learnings and experiences from the event. Use the following example to get a better understanding of this stage:

Example: I will keep all the learnings in mind and use it if the same scenario happens again in future. Instead of getting frustrated, I will focus on my work. Once everything becomes alright, I will apply for holidays.

Some of the questions mentioned below you can ask yourself to clarify this stage:

• What do you need to do to be better prepared to face this experience in the future?
• Even if the experience was positive and you did well, in which areas can you improve? 
• What specific steps do you need to take to achieve the suggested improvements?
• What additional skills and knowledge do you need to develop?

Real-World Practices of the Reflective Cycle

As mentioned above, there are many types of professionals who employ Gibbs’ reflective cycle for personal growth. Despite professionals, students also leverage this model to improve critical thinking. Below are a few areas where this model is used the most:

• Healthcare Industries: The Gibbs’ reflective cycle is used by medical professionals to improve patient care and decision making. Nurses and other professionals can improve their learning while identifying their strengths and weaknesses.
• Education: This technique is mostly used by students to enhance their knowledge and develop critical thinking. Despite scholars, educators also use this model for a better understanding and to plan future actions.
• Business Management: Continuously improving is a crucial part of business. This is why business professionals prefer to use this reflective cycle. It helps businesses to learn from their experiences and correct their mistakes for better results.

Apart from this, there are many other industries where this model gets utilised. The reason is its benefits, which you will read in the next section.

What are the Benefits of Using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle?

Now, you might think about why to use the Gibbs reflective cycle? Well, the answer is pretty simple. By using this model, you can leverage several benefits that will help you in personal growth. We listed a few of its advantages you can explore by reading below:

Understand Personal Strengths

When it comes to identifying your strengths, this model plays a crucial role. It gives you a framework which you can use to learn from your experiences. By using your past learnings, you can understand your capabilities and strengths.

Develop Problem-Solving Ability

By examining your experiences, you can understand the cause and what action you took to resolve that problem. In future, you can use the same learnings to address the issues when they happen again. This is how you can improve your problem-solving capabilities.

Improve Future Learning

This model gives you a framework that gives you a step-by-step process which you can utilise for future difficulties. As you keep using this model in different fields, you start learning things fast and improve your mistakes. It will be beneficial for you in dealing with complex issues.

Gibbs’ reflective cycle can be beneficial, but you must know the right way to use it. In the next section, you will explore some tips to incorporate this model effectively.

3 Important Tips for Effective Reflection

Using a reflective style in the right way to get the best results is often a crucial but complicated step. If you want Gibbs’ reflective style to work best for you, then you have to keep a few things in mind. Below, we mentioned a few tips used by most experts and professionals for effective reflection:

• Acknowledge with Honesty: Relying on just one side can make it difficult to reach the right point. When examining experiences, make sure to understand every aspect. Even if it is a mistake, be honest and acknowledge it to get a more accurate understanding.
• Use Concrete Details: The better you analyse the experience, the better results you will get. This is why you should focus on figuring out the specific events regarding the situation. Also, use examples to get a strong learning point.
• Seek Feedback: If you are using this model or going to use it in future, it is always important to discuss reflections. Even if any area needs improvement, they will guide you so you do not make the same mistake again.

Conclusion

To wrap up, it is not difficult to say that Gibbs’ reflective cycle is a crucial part of continuous improvement. No matter which field you belong to, the involvement of this model becomes a necessity. The biggest reason that increases its importance among us is its support for personal growth. Incorporating the reflective cycle helps you look at your capabilities. By having an idea of your weaknesses and strengths, you can deal with problems in a better way.

As a student, you should integrate this reflective practice as part of your learning process. It gives you a structured approach which you can utilise to complete college assignments. With this model, you can improve your thinking ability, learn things faster and improve performance. However, if you are finding it difficult to include this framework in your nursing assignment, you can even hire Native Assignment Help writers. Their excellent writing skills not only incorporate the Gibbs’ reflective cycle but also give you a better understanding of it.