Background: A community of practice was established in 2020 by three doctoral nursing students during the Covid-19 pandemic, when in-person learning was on hold. The group members were intentional about using the community of practice as part of their personal and collective reflexive learning strategies. An expanded ‘Community of Practice’, open to doctoral students in the health professions, developed from the core group’s initiative.

Aim: The aim of this article is to critically reflect on the experience of participating in a community of practice focused on the development of an intentional reflexive practice, and to explore how self-knowledge as students and novice researchers was cultivated through collective reflection and discussion.

Conclusion: This article contributes to the literature on communities of practice in the context of doctoral nursing studies. Participation in a community of practice provides a person-centred approach to learning and self-knowledge for novice researchers.

Implications for practice:

• A community of practice can create space for an intentional reflexive practice for doctoral researchers
• Engaging in collective reflexive inquiry has potential to expand the perspectives and outlook of individual researchers
• Participation in a community of practice can transform the doctoral student experience by encouraging a participatory, person-centred approach that promotes student flourishing as novice researchers

This article by Martha Whitfield, Paulina Bleah and Jovina Concepcion Bachynski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.