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Reflective writing as a learning tool to improve exam performance in a clinical physiology course
Author(s) -
Anderson Lisa C
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.766.25
Subject(s) - rubric , syllabus , reflective writing , mathematics education , psychology , reflection (computer programming) , medical education , computer science , medicine , programming language
Reflective writing is a process that allows the writer to give serious consideration to an experience. The act of reflecting can, not only give the writer insights into that experience but, also, be the vehicle of further learning. Given the value of reflection as a learning tool, reflective writing assignments have been incorporated into a two course Clinical Physiology series. Reflective writings are assigned after a two‐part exam. Part one is a multiple‐choice exam completed by each student individually. Part two is a group exam in which an assigned interdisciplinary group completes the same exam given in part one. During the group exam, students discuss each question until they reach a consensus about the correct answer. In previous work, student writings were analyzed using a reflective rubric adapted from the work of Learman (1). The analysis of student writings from the 2015–2016 academic year was used to refine the rubric and analysis for writings from the 2016–2017 academic year was used to perform inter‐rater reliability testing. For the 2017–2018 academic year, the adapted reflection rubric was included in the course syllabi for the purpose of guiding the student's reflective writings. Exam scores from academic year 2016–17 (pre‐rubric) were compared to exam scores from academic year 2017–2018 (post‐rubric). The following hypothesis was tested: students would benefit from having a rubric to guide their reflective writing and would therefore score higher on multiple choice exams than students who were not provided the rubric (since it had not yet been developed). There was not statistical difference between the exam averages on the first exam of the year, but in subsequent exams, the 2017–2018 students performed significantly better on individual exams, supporting the hypothesis. Data from academic year 2018–2019 is currently being collected and analyzed. Support or Funding Information NA This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .