Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2011

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether there is evidence of reflection in student-written journals and to investigate whether students show improvements in their reflective skills through journal keeping. To that end, the reflection journals of 3460 first-year students enrolled in a polytechnic were studied by means of an automated coding procedure. Data used in the analyses were students' journals for an entire week, collected once at the beginning and again at the end of an academic year. Outcomes of the content analyses suggest that there is evidence of reflection in students' journals and that students reflected on three general categories related to their learning: critical review of past learning experiences, cognitive learning strategies and summaries of what was learnt. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that students show improvements in their reflective skills as they progressed through the academic year. The findings when taken together suggest that reflection journals can be used to promote self-reflection and learning amongst students.

Keywords

Learning, metacognition, reflection journals, self-reflection, text analysis

Discipline

Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Educational Methods | Higher Education

Publication

Higher Education Research & Development

Volume

30

Issue

4

First Page

519

Last Page

532

ISSN

0729-4360

Identifier

10.1080/07294360.2010.512627

Publisher

Taylor and Francis Group

Copyright Owner and License

Publisher

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.512627

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