Behind the scenes of reflective practice in professional development: A glance into the ethical predicaments of secondary school teachers

•Reflective practice may compromise students' and teachers' privacy.•Reflective practice may mitigate students' learning processes.•Reflective practice may subvert teachers' ethical relationships with colleagues.•Ethical dilemmas upon reflective practices in PD may engender moral injury.•Clear boundaries should be set between formative and summative evaluations.

This case study examined 12 American secondary school teachers' ethical predicaments involving reflective practices in professional development programs (PDPs), and the impact of these predicaments on their school's work processes. Qualitative measures revealed ethical ramifications of professional development's (PD) reflective procedures, whereby teachers experienced deleterious effects regarding their students and their colleagues, to the extent that teachers may have experienced moral injury. Furthermore, findings showed that teachers who served as group facilitators struggled to set an ethical balance between formative evaluation and summative evaluation, to the extent of violating confidential PD codes. Implications for reflective practices in PD are discussed.