Teachers’ perceptions, facilitators, and barriers to the regular use of self-reflection in public health higher education during COVID-19 — a mixed methods approach

The objective of this study was to assess the perceptions as well as to explore the facilitators and barriers to the regular use of self-reflection as a pedagogical tool by teachers in public health education during COVID-19. We used a mixed methods approach, comprising a cross-sectional survey followed by in-depth interviews. Quantitative findings revealed that there was a significantly greater proportion of regular users of self-reflection who knew how to incorporate self-reflection elements in their teaching than the infrequent users. Qualitative findings revealed that a recurring reason for using self-reflection in teaching was to better understand students, given the online classroom environment during COVID-19. Teachers expressed the need for support to sustain the regular use of reflection in teaching. Facilitating factors could be external or internal to the teacher. For external factors, a recurring subtheme was institutional support, indicating that teachers expected support (or at least no objections) from their organisation. For internal factors, perceived positive impacts on students was identified as a recurring subtheme. Several barriers to the regular use of reflection were described. These included external factors such as the lack of peer sharing, as well as internal factors such as the prioritisation of other contents to teach.