Reflexivity and the development of process knowledge in social work: A classification and empirical study

The relationship between knowledge and practice has been a long standing is sue for social work. This is, in part, because, despite the strong intuitiv e appeal of a position which emphasises the importance of knowledge, this h as yet to be established through research. Part of the problem lies with di fferent epistemological positions, and the consequent differences in the ex amination of knowledge application. Recently, however, there has been a gro wth of theoretical interest in reflection, reflexivity and cognitive proces ses as a way of looking at social work knowledge. This process knowledge re presents a break from the past where, despite other differences, writers em phasised 'knowledge as product', that is given knowledge, already researche d and available for practice use. Despite impressive theoretical developmen ts, however, process knowledge has not been subject to empirical research. This paper reports on work which sought to develop categories and concepts for process knowledge based on research with social workers. Using a novel method, the cognitive processes interview, a number of categories of proces s knowledge were identified related broadly to areas of critical appraisal, hypothesis generation and the relationship between the two. The paper prov ides clear evidence of the need for high level cognitive abilities for the conduct of practice, and the need to develop educational processes which wi ll encourage rigour in relation to these cognitive processes.