Reflexivity is thinking about the way we think and the influences on our thinking. Being aware of the relationship between the individual (student or researcher) and the social world (being reflexive) and as Moon (2010) says: acknowledging who you are. Being reflexive means you consider: your views or values of a previous experience, the importance of additional factors such as perception, personal habits, social pressure (Mezirow, 1983, 2000), your ‘emotional state’ (Moon, 2010), how you assign meaning (Moon, 2008), or makes sense (Boud et al., 1985), and consider whether you have experienced a change in behaviour? (Osterman and Kottkamp, 1993).
When one considers the emotional experience of reflective writing, do we as educators have the right to assess such ‘personal’ writing?