Reflexiveness: structural principle for a course on values.
This article describes an attempt to integrate the cognitive and affective domains in a course on values for allied health students by using reflexiveness as the course's structural principle. This course's reflexive structure included opportunities for the students to reflect critically on value questions, an interconnected system of educational stages, and a synthesis of traditional curricular elements. Each of the educational stages (conceptual, dialogue, and affective analysis and application) incorporated and developed the information and affective skills gained by the students in the previous stages. Even the evaluation instruments were designed as learning exercises to reflect the goal of the course. Reflexiveness thus provided a curricular pattern or strategy for a systematic approach to the study of the moral dimensions of health care by allied health professionals.