On making silk purses: developing reflective practitioners in hospitality management education

Objectives being set by governmental, educational and industrial bodies suggest that future managers need to be reflective practitioners, and this issue will have to be addressed by hospitality educators. The paper suggests that if educators are to meet targets to achieve general standards of graduateness which require theoretical and critical evaluation as well as the demonstration of practical and organisational skills, they need to be systematic about their understanding of students’ learning preferences. Results from the pilot study reported on in this paper suggest that hospitality students have learning preferences which do not naturally include theorising or reflection. This paper furthermore reports on one set of educational concepts which can be useful in tracking students’ learning styles and in encouraging the development of more reflective approaches to study and management tasks.