Enhance nursing students’ reflection through Padlet: an action research

Background: Reflective practice (RP) is encouraged amongst healthcare students, including nursing students. However, students do not have a ‘safe space’ to practice reflection before being assessed. Padlet is an interactive platform that can potentially facilitate students’ reflection via its features that enables anonymous participation, asynchronous participation and collaborative learning environment. This study aims to explore the influence of current reflection teaching method on students’ RP and how Padlet can facilitate students’ RP. Methods: An action research was undertaken with 22 first year nursing students from Feb to May 2023. Participants answered questions anonymously pre-class and post-class in two Padlet boards. The researcher gave constructive feedback and signposted good examples of reflection to participants thus enabling ‘champion’ students to emerge during the process. Anonymous texts from two Padlet boards were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis technique. Results: Three themes were generated: i) Pre-class variable baseline understanding of reflection; ii) Co-constructed reflection and iii) Tools and triggers for reflection. Students joined the study with different presumptions and understanding of reflection, ranging from descriptive understanding of the concept, a total misunderstanding of the concept and in-depth understanding of reflection. They all indicated a changed understanding of reflection post-class and emphasized the benefits of a socially constructed learning process. Participants suggested the use of reflective tools (via reflective models) and triggers (via probing questions and feedback) as useful to facilitate their reflection. Conclusions: This study indicates that the current teaching materials enable students to enhance their understanding of reflection. Nevertheless, students could potentially benefit from tools and triggers that will initiate and support their reflection. To that end, Padlet proves a promising tool to enhance students’ reflection via its function to enable anonymity, asynchronous participation and socially constructed learning environment.