Using Reflective Journaling to Promote Achievement in Graduate Statistics Coursework

J Thropp

Abstract


By encouraging students to reflect on their own learning processes and identify areas that they understand as well as areas that require further improvement, student performance can be improved. This reflection promotes the development of metacognitive skills, and may be especially beneficial for students facing novel and challenging material, notably statistics coursework.  Students from two different semesters of a graduate-level introductory statistics course were compared.  In the experimental group, students were encouraged to complete a weekly reflective journal about their learning progress in a graduate-level statistics course.  The control group followed the same course structure as the experimental group, but did not complete the journals.  Independent samples t-tests were conducted on assignment and test scores as well as the final course grade for the experimental semester and the control semester.  The experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on one assignment and one test.  The experimental group had a marginally higher average than the control group on a second assignment.  The results and analysis of journal content show support for the use of reflective journaling to improve the student learning experience. 


Keywords


Reflective journaling; statistics coursework

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References


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