4R Reflection
Updated 2026-08-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
The 4R framework structures reflection in four stages: reporting, describing the situation; responding, recording one's personal reaction; relating, connecting the experience to existing knowledge and past experience; and reasoning, analysing the underlying causes and principles. It is used in reflective practice and teacher education to push reflection beyond description. The value lies in the last two stages, where an experience becomes transferable understanding rather than a record.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Get past the account: describe what happened before attempting to explain it. - Connect to prior knowledge: link the experience to what you already understood. - Reason about causes: explain why it happened rather than only what it was like.
Anchor fast decisions
Describing an event requires only recall, so reflection can stop there and produce a diary entry rather than learning. Relating the event to prior knowledge identifies where existing understanding was incomplete, and reasoning about causes produces a principle that applies elsewhere. Those two stages are what make the experience reusable.
MINIMUM ACTION
In progress 0/1Practice this model in one real situation:
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Source support: Explicit
- research.qut.edu.auhttps://research.qut.edu.au/eportfolio/students-alumni/reflective-practises-writing-make-a-start-and-maintain-the-momentum/verified
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