1. What is reflective writing?
Reflective Writing & The Research Process
Projects Leads: Larissa Gordon, Reference & Instruction Librarian / Daniel Schall, Writing Center Director & English Composition Instructor
With support from: Dr. Jeanne Buckley, Associate Dean, Landman Library & Coordinator of Student Learning Assessment / Dr. Tom Hemmeter, Director of First Year Writing, Associate Professor of English
Research Questions
Process
Can reflective writing help students think about research as an iterative process that is connected to the writing process?
Will that changed thinking improve students’ research and ability to integrate sources into their papers?
Modified & expanded existing reflective assignments in an EN101 (first year writing) course to include the option for students to reflect on the research process.
Created a rubric based on developed criteria, and collected student reflective assignments and student final argument papers to assess.
Used an electronic form to record rubric data (see image below)
1= not found or minimal application
N/A= assignment does not include that criteria.
Project leads normed scoring process, then assessed and discussed individual scores and overall conclusions. Project leads also recorded observational comments and excerpts from student work.
What is reflective writing?
Results
Asking students to use writing to articulate not just what they have done with regard to research, but why they have made the choices they made (ie., meta- cognitive writing).
Due to the intensive nature of the assessment, work from ten students was sampled from the class.
Results, both rubric scores and student reflective comments, show that that students have only minimally conceptualized research as a part of the writing process. For example: Students will mention in their research journal the need for more research, but subsequent journal entries often do not discuss what new information was found, and often no change in the student’s topic/focus is evident in subsequent journal entries or in the student’s paper.
Students also do not demonstrate that they have evaluated the sources used, or that they try to use sources with different and more sophisticated levels of authority. This is concerning, as it is a goal of our Information Literacy program in First Year Seminar classes, which are taken concurrently with EN101. This suggests that students are not transferring this knowledge to first year writing courses.
Literature Review
Research journals have long been a tool of IL instruction (Smith), but other reflective opportunities exist, such as asking students to reflect on past experiences (Detmering & Johnson) to help them put present learning into context.
Conclusions
While results indicated significant room for student growth, we believe that the low student marks may also be reflective of a need for clearer assignment prompts for—and scaffolding of—reflective activities to help students learn how to reflect more deeply. We believe this because student reflective comments often referenced conceptualizing assignments in terms paper organization, even within journals designed explicitly for reflection of the research process.
“It is only through a gradual process of support and challenge that students will move into this new way of processing their thoughts” (Grossman).
Reflective practices intersect with the growing interest in critical information literacy and the new Framework’s focus on conceptual learning (Jacobs)
Rubric
Works Cited
Detmering, R. & Johnson, A. M. (2012). Research Papers Have Always Seemed Very Daunting": Information literacy
narratives and the student research experience. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 12 (1)
Grossman, R. (2009). Structures for Facilitating Student Reflection. College Teaching. 57(1)
Jacobs, H. L. M. (2008). Information Literacy and Reflective Pedagogical Praxis. The Journal of Academic Librarianship.
34(3)
Smith, T. G. (2001). Keeping Track: Librarians, composition instructors, and student writers use the
research journal. Research Strategies
This project is part of the program “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success” which is undertaken by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in partnership with the Association for Institutional Research and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. The program, a cornerstone of ACRL's Value of Academic Libraries initiative, is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.