Reflective Report Example

Assessment 1: Reflective Report

INTRODUCTION

Self-reflection is a broad term which refers to the procedure of evaluating, considering and analysing what or how a person thinks, behave and act. Self-reflection is an important process that helps an individual to reflect their past experiences and allow them to learn from their mistakes. It is highly crucial technique for the students as it contributes to their self-concept and helps to improve their weaknesses. The report is going to present the reflection on module focused on communication skills and its related different aspect. The report will explain personal experience, analysis of situation, own feelings, thoughts and learning by working on module. Further, the report will describe the challenges faced while working on different activities and action plan for further improvements.

MAIN BODY

Health & social care is highly responsible industry and it directly influences the well-being and people’s quality of life through offering necessary support, treatment and care to the patients. The field deals with many people every day and it is the duty of the healthcare professionals to effectively manage the service users. Communication plays a crucial role in health and social care to identify the needs of the clients (Aughterson et al, 2021). As a student of health and social care, I have participated in wide range of activities during the module. My experience of working on different tasks is given below in a detailed manner.

Description of experience

Recently, I have participated on the module which has included a range of activities. Basically, it was a group activity and I and other members worked together to complete activities. Initially, I felt little nervous because I have to deal with many people including clients or service users which was quite new experience for me. However, after getting enough motivation from my team members and mentors, I started the activities. First of all I and my team members have divided roles and responsibilities according to the skills and knowledge of everyone. I was one of the members of the team and got responsibilities to find the different types of communication as well as strategies for effective communication. Although, I have also resolved other tasks and activities throughout the module which significantly contributed in my knowledge & abilities. I wanted to complete my duties and assigned tasks in an appropriate manner so that it has increased my knowledge level. Further, I have used my different skills to solve the tasks. I have strong communication skills and used skills to interact with the other team members in a confident way. Communication skill is one of the major skill that students must have to convey message accurately (Seiter and Brophy, 2022). As a student I felt that communication ability facilitated me when I need help to solve tasks during module.

Further, I utilised my researching skills and online resources to search about different communication types and their importance. Online platform like Google helped me to know the different strategies of effective communication which could be used in health and social care settings. During the module, I realised that I have good problem-solving skills which helped me to achieve the learning outcomes effectively. Problem-solving allows the students to identify the problem as well as solve it by analysing information, measuring options and making informed decision (Yang, Chang and Jen, 2023). Throughout the project, I always tried to complete assigned work before deadline to achieve outcomes. I noticed that some team members were find difficulties to solve their allotted tasks. After that, I communicated with them and tried to understand their issues and provided necessary help. The module gave me chance to increase my knowledge regarding significance of communication in health and social care settings.

Reflection

Before working together to carry out the project, I was feeling little anxious. I did not have any idea about the upcoming activities and overall project. I thought how I would complete the tasks on time and lots of thoughts came into my mind before starting this experience. However, at the same time, I also felt quite satisfied that this module would help me in improving my learning journey as a health and social care student. After that when we knew about the different activities which we had to perform I felt quite satisfied. The reason behind this was that I personally believed that communication ability is crucial ability to manage the service users in health care field. As patients usually have different needs and a good communication capability allows healthcare workers to identify the individual needs effectually (Mata et al, 2021). Further, for ensuring smooth functioning me and my team members divided tasks among each other. This in turn recognized as a good decision. It reduced the risks of conflicts regarding duties & roles and every student carry out their work efficiently without any problem.

During the project, I felt frustrated sometimes because I had lot of work to do. I took some extra time to complete each activity and tasks which impacted my overall work. I realised while working that I should lay focus on my ability to complete the work on time otherwise I may left behind. During experience I got full support of my mentor and other members which assisted me to finish task. My new experience was about the importance of multi-agency and inter-agency working along with its advantages for service users (French et al, 2022). In addition to this, I gained knowledge about the several factors that need to be considered while approaching to the clients. I also got knowledge about the different barriers to communication such as; environmental factors, visual abilities, hearing problem, social context and many more that impact communication. This experience provided me a chance to know that it is the most important for the healthcare workers to focus on communication strategies to overcome the barriers and thereby become able to offer better services to the clients. Overall, I had mixed feelings during experience because sometimes I was frustrated because of tough tasks. On the other side, sometimes I easily performed activities by using my skills, abilities and knowledge.

Analysis

The thing which went well during the module was the prominent allocation of roles and responsibilities. I identified that when we divided roles and responsibilities, I worked efficiently due to having awareness about the own duties. I enjoyed team work a lot and the experience gave me opportunity to improve my team work abilities. While working on the various activities, I always tried to express my point of views related to the topic. I also gave priority to the other student’s opinions and thereby showed respect towards the diverse perspectives of the different people (Tunagür, Kardaş and Kardaş, 2021). Moreover, I learned many things about communication and gained understanding about the range of client needs within the health & social care industry. By doing assessment, I discovered that I confidently communicating with the others and asked questions where I felt difficulties. I also realised that I have good critical-thinking skills which facilitated me to analyse the problem in-depth manner. It also allowed me to focus on the each aspect while making decisions.

However, the thing which worked not well was my inefficiency to complete the tasks on time. I realised that I was not good in managing time and often faced difficulties to finish tasks. The main reason behind my poor time management skills was that I took lot of time complete one task. I researched about each topic in-depth manner and I also did not schedule my time. It was my mistake that I used my valuable time on unnecessary tasks that affected my overall work. During the project, I identified that I have poor emotional intelligence skills and experienced problems to control my feelings and thoughts while handling tough situations. In my opinion, it is crucial for an individual to have good emotional intelligence skills especially who is a healthcare worker (Del Vecchio et al, 2022). A healthcare professional have to deal with the different clients and situations and emotional intelligence ability helps them to manage situations. Therefore, I must say that overall experience was good, I learned about my strengths as well as those areas where I need further developments.

Learning

The experience was good as it provided me opportunities to know the various communication types and different strategies of effective communication. I learned about multi-agency working where healthcare professionals from different agencies work with each other to prevent problems from happening. Meanwhile also got knowledge about inter-agency working which means two or more than two organisations working together in order to accomplish common goal. I worked with other members who helped me to know the significance of collaborative approach within health & social care settings. Collaborative approach is advantageous as it allows for offering better treatment to the service users (Ronquillo et al, 2021). Moreover, I learned about the data sharing, legislation, diversity, inclusivity and policies regarding healthcare. I got knowledge about equality act, care act, data protection act, safeguarding and many more. It is essential for the healthcare professionals, workers and other people, who are associated with this field, have knowledge about all these policies and must comply with it to maintain privacy and safety of service users.

Concerned experience has highly contributed to my personal development as well as academic growth. I learned about how to work well in a team and listen to other member’s opinions respectfully. It also helped me in improving my interpersonal and social skills as I worked with students who belong to different background. Social skills are useful in making strong relationship with other people that further helps in carrying out task and activities within healthcare settings effectually (Chrzan-Rodak et al, 2022). By taking part in different tasks related to communication I become more proficient in this field. Further, I became good problem-solver as I solved different tasks throughout the module. I have also gained emotional intelligence skills which is vital for controlling own emotions. It also provides assistance in understanding the feelings of other people and show empathy to others when they are facing tough situation in the life. Being a healthcare student, I have to become good in understanding the individual needs of clients otherwise I cannot fulfil their requirements. The experience contributed extremely in my academic development and helped me to become more responsible student.

Challenges

As mentioned above, one of the major challenges during module was my lack of ability to manage time while doing multiple works. I had to do different tasks and felt workload sometimes. I was unable to make balance between various tasks and time which is weakness of mine. Nevertheless, this module helped me in improving my time management skills. My mentor who was supervising our work taught me how to divide and prioritise the work. I also used internet and learned different ways to manage the time. The module helped me to know the significance of time management ability for a student. Dividing our tasks into smaller and achievable sections helps an individual to complete the work on time and meet deadlines (Hsu and Goldsmith, 2021). While working on various activities, I also realised that I was weak in organising things appropriately. My ineffective organisation skills adversely impacted my performance and productivity. Due to this weakness, I also faced stress and after that, I decided to improve my organisations skills.

I started to concentrate on key strategies prioritising tasks, setting clear goals, appropriate planning and clear communication. I started to pay attention on each detail and small work which actually helped me to stay organised. Meanwhile, I also looked for feedback from my peers so that I can adjust my strategies and increase my efforts. The overall experience enables me to know the importance of feedback approach as it plays vital role in academic and helps to shaping the learning experiences of learners. Constructive and honest feedback guide students in the direction of accomplishing academic success (Fulham, Krueger and Cohen, 2022). In addition to this, sometimes I struggled in relation to managing the complex tasks. During the module, I got chance to meet with the different client groups. Although, I used my communication skills to interact with them and understanding their needs as well. However, I did not have knowledge about how to understand the individual clients need which created problem for me. After that, I search about different communication ways on internet and increased my knowledge which helped me to interact with client individual needs.

Action plan

I must say that overall experience was worthy and facilitated me to improve my knowledge about communication. The knowledge and skills which gained will definitely help me in my future when I will perform similar kind of activities in future. As I am health and social care students, the knowledge will help me in future workplace. I want to work in healthcare organisation and my skills, abilities, knowledge and experience will allow me to confidently communicate with service users. It will help me to make best strategies to manage the tough conditions and try to offer better services according to needs of services users. I will also use my knowledge and experience to enhance the patient outcomes and contribute to increase effectiveness of heath care settings. I will contribute to improve the wellbeing of the society.

However, based on analysis, I plan to improve some skills and abilities in order to do better in my field. There is action plan given below which will help me to enhance skills in systematic manner:

Skills	Resources	Actions	Time limit
Communication skills	Online course and books	I will join online classes and learn different communication skills like verbal communication and active listening skills (Mahmud and German, 2021). I will also receive feedbacks from tutor which will help me to know my improvement level. I will read books which will increase my language ability and vocabulary.	4 months
Time management skills	Workshops and online platform	I will take part in workshops where I will join time-based individual activities and try complete in given time. I will also use online platform and solve quizzes and games as it will allow me to make quick decisions and improve my focus.	3 months
Emotional intelligence	Skill development course	For improving emotional intelligence ability, I will take admission in skill development course and participate in empathy-building activities (Curelaru, Curelaru and Cristea, 2022). Professional mentor will also provide me guidance on development of emotional intelligence.	2 months

CONCLUSION

As per above report, it can be stated that self-reflection is an excellent process to reflect on own past experiences and take it as an opportunity to improve skills and abilities. The experience was really helpful to know the importance of communication in health and social care field. The experience was beneficial for me because it allowed me to know my strengths and areas of improvements. It provided me chance to become more effective so that I can do better in my academic life and could effectively communicate with the service users. Besides this, it can be inferred from the evaluation that I also faced some challenges which is normal when we solve any work related activities. The experience was significant for me because it helped me to realise that we could easily overcome challenges if we perform work with strategy.

This reflective report demonstrates how communication skills, teamwork, and self-analysis enhance personal and academic growth in health and social care. It shows structured reflection, learning from challenges, and practical action planning. Students can use this as a model to understand academic reflection, referencing, and critical analysis. For personalized guidance, assignment help online can provide plagiarism-free, well-structured reports tailored to your module requirements, ensuring better grades and confidence in professional academic writing.

REFERENCES

Books and Journals

Aughterson, H., McKinlay, A.R., Fancourt, D. and Burton, A., 2021. Psychosocial impact on frontline health and social care professionals in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative interview study. BMJ open, 11(2), p.e047353.

Chrzan-Rodak, A., Nowicki, G.J., Schneider-Matyka, D., Grochans, E. and Ślusarska, B., 2022. Impact of the empathic understanding of people and type D personality as the correlates of social skills of primary health care nurses: A cross-sectional study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(1), p.201.

Curelaru, M., Curelaru, V. and Cristea, M., 2022. Students’ perceptions of online learning during COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative approach. Sustainability, 14(13), p.8138.

Del Vecchio, A., Moschella, P.C., Lanham, J.G. and Zavertnik, J.E., 2022. Acting to teach communication skills to nurses. The clinical teacher, 19(4), pp.289-293.

French, S.G., Lock, K., Zortea, T., Hassall, E., Bream, V., Webb, K. and Salkovskis, P.M., 2022. Working together when the problem is multi-faceted: understanding inter-agency working for the benefit of people with hoarding problems. the Cognitive Behaviour Therapist, 15, p.e60.

Fulham, N.M., Krueger, K.L. and Cohen, T.R., 2022. Honest feedback: Barriers to receptivity and discerning the truth in feedback. Current Opinion in Psychology, 46, p.101405.

Hsu, J.L. and Goldsmith, G.R., 2021. Instructor strategies to alleviate stress and anxiety among college and university STEM students. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(1), p.es1.

Mahmud, Y.S. and German, E., 2021. Online self-regulated learning strategies amid a global pandemic: Insights from Indonesian university students. Malaysian Journal of Learning and Instruction, 18(2), pp.45-68.

Mata, Á.N.D.S., de Azevedo, K.P.M., Braga, L.P., de Medeiros, G.C.B.S., de Oliveira Segundo, V.H., Bezerra, I.N.M., Pimenta, I.D.S.F., Nicolás, I.M. and Piuvezam, G., 2021. Training in communication skills for self-efficacy of health professionals: a systematic review. Human resources for health, 19, pp.1-9.

Ronquillo, C.E., Peltonen, L.M., Pruinelli, L., Chu, C.H., Bakken, S., Beduschi, A., Cato, K., Hardiker, N., Junger, A., Michalowski, M. and Nyrup, R., 2021. Artificial intelligence in nursing: Priorities and opportunities from an international invitational think‐tank of the Nursing and Artificial Intelligence Leadership Collaborative. Journal of advanced nursing, 77(9), pp.3707-3717.

Seiter, C.R. and Brophy, N.S., 2022. Social support and aggressive communication on social network sites during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health communication, 37(10), pp.1295-1304.

Tunagür, M., Kardaş, N. and Kardaş, M.N., 2021. The effect of student centered listening/speaking activities on Turkish listening speaking skills of bilingual students. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 9(1), pp.136-149.

Yang, C.L., Chang, C.Y. and Jen, H.J., 2023. Facilitating undergraduate students’ problem-solving and critical thinking competence via online escape room learning. Nurse Education in Practice, 73, p.103828.