5.5.1.1 What reflection means
Each of the L10 participants interpreted reflection in a unique and diverse way which when analysed, comprised of reflection in relation to self-evaluation, individual learning styles and skills. One participant interpreted reflection to be concerning course content and the value of educators. In two other cases, reflection on learning was sometimes talked about in terms of enjoyment of the class or how easy or difficult a module was. However, there seemed to be more of a common element around PDP (personal development planning) and self- evaluation (SWOT, SMART goals). For these participants reflection had a detached quality or set apartness, which it seemed, was equated with self- evaluation and self-monitoring. As one L10 participant defined it:
So there’s been like reflective learning in a sense of looking back and is that like SMART [goals] and SWOT [activities] sort of thing isn’t it? Yes so like throughout since first year we have had it (Shadia1:24).
This comment was indicative of the way these students associated reflection with examination of the self, particularly in relation to strengths and
weaknesses. Similarly, another participant elaborated that:
…Reflective learning is personally like evaluating how you done something or rather how you feel about how you’ve learned if that makes sense in any way. That’s how I would describe reflective learning (Eva1:52).
The comments above emphasised how these students could relate themselves to their learning experiences. Both comments and others found in the data
140 appeared to suggest that these students used reflection as a tool for self-
knowledge and to enhance their learning. As noted earlier in Chapter Two, this thinking back on action is akin to Dewey’s (1933) notion of reflection as
problem-solving, in that reflection referred to the ability to look back critically and imaginatively, to do task analysis, and also to look forward and to do anticipatory planning. In using reflection to enhance self-knowledge, and in a similar fashion to the L7 students, these participants viewed reflection as a process to help them understand their personal skills and experiences. According to Fullana et al. (2016), in-depth reflection can help students to identify positive and negative aspects of themselves in relation to learning and their learning processes. Specifically, Fullana et al.’s research suggested that reflective learning ‘notably contributes to raising students' awareness of their own learning, and identifying both positive and improvable aspects of their abilities in and attitudes towards learning’ (2016:1018). I suggest this was mirrored in comments made by L10 participants that reflection helped them reflect on what they already knew and relate learning to real-life experiences. One of the participants summed up this process:
You can know what you are capable of yourself and also what you are capable of learning and then you can apply it to a professional
situation (Eva1:224).
In this way, each of the final year students formed links between the self, learning and professional practice. Here I would argue that the focus on the self, suggested that both the L7 and L10 participants used reflection as a process that to them, authentically revealed a knowable self, and saw self-examination and self-development as the ultimate goal of their reflections. This I suggest was an interesting dimension of the study, as it seemed to support Foucault’s writings as discussed in Chapter Three, which emphasised the more recent relocation of reflection as a tool of governmentality and responsibilisation.
5.5.1.2 Learning from Mistakes and Doing Better
As a theme, Doing Better was still present in the L10 participants’ accounts but the theme Learning from Mistakes was less pronounced. Doing Better related to participants viewing themselves as objects which could be improved. This
141 academic improvement in terms of better grades. One of the L10 participants commented that doing better provided the motivation for reflection:
Obviously, reflection on self I feel is good because you can improve so that’s my main objective for doing it (Eva1:254).
The theme Learning from Mistakes concerned the assessment of learning or performance from the perspective of past mistakes. This theme defined
reflection as being part of revisiting the past or weaknesses with the intention of turning things around so that success was a more likely outcome. One
participant explained how learning from mistakes was positioned in terms of reflection:
It’s so that you can look back and see where the things have went wrong, so you know how to correct them so that you can always kind of say well that went really well… I can use that method again (Sharri1:153).
Just like the L7 participant constructs of reflection, comments like those above suggested that the L10 participants positioned reflection so that it was tied up with self-improvement and self-development. One of the participants
demonstrated how reflection was associated with the ability to observe and make judgements about their own skills and learning:
Like you are forced to think about …how you can be better so you’re constantly now in a mind-set of how can I be better at this or how can I change the way that I’m acting in this situation? (Shadia1:292).
The comment suggested to me that both groups of students had moved toward being autonomous learners who could evaluate their performance in order to evaluate their own learning needs. This movement could be important in terms of management learning in particular, as Rigg and Trehan (2008) have explained that as managers reflect, they are likely to display less automated actions and instead evaluate the consequences of their previous actions. This practical knowing, acting and learning enable managers to think critically, evaluate their prior experiences and synthesize new modified competences every time they deliver a given task. I noted previously in Chapter Two, that Dewey (1933) referred to engagement in objective and rigorous inquiry while exploring alternative possibilities as open-mindedness. By questioning their actions, it seemed that these L10 participants were questioning their firmest beliefs and I
142 would argue that their accounts may be characterized as open-mindedness on their parts. However, as a learning process it also seemed closely related to the culture of performativity discussed in Chapter Three. It is worth noting that both
Learning from Mistakes and Doing Better were less overtly discussed by the
final- year participants. Interestingly, within this cohort of participants, there was a new theme, which centred on employability and selling yourself. The students still referred to academic progress and combatting weaknesses but unlike their L7 counterparts, it appeared the L10 participants had developed a clear focus around identifying skills and employability and I explore this new element in subsection 5.5.1.4.
5.5.1.3 This is Hard
According to Duke and Appleton (2000:1557), ‘the ability to reflect is
developmental and some reflective skills are harder to achieve than others’. It was therefore unsurprising, that the problems associated with reflection
discussed by L7 participants were mirrored by those of the L10 participants. All the L10 students seemed to share similar anxieties around dealing with failure or embarrassing incidents. Tensions with group work and the dilemma around weaknesses and honesty was raised again. One of the L10 participants encapsulated this:
I don’t necessarily like it because I don’t think like… a lot of people have got that shyness in them where they don’t want to…like pure bum themselves up (Sharri1:153).
In light of the comment above, I would argue that this discomfort with the process of reflection demonstrated how this kind of work can still provoke anxiety and might indicate that students regardless of year of study require further support to reflect on their own experience. These L10 participant
accounts resonate with the findings of Fullana et al. (2016) who claimed that HE still tends to prioritize the procedural and cognitive aspects of learning, leaving aside emotional aspects, which also form part of the experience. In a similar fashion to the L7 accounts analysed earlier, reflecting on group work also
presented tensions for each of the L10 participants. One participant spoke about how the experience of reflection on group work overshadowed her reflections on learning:
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…it just it kind of took over my reflection because I was talking about that rather than the actual module, which was a shame (Eva1:187).
Another L10 participant spoke of the conflicts involved in group work but also acknowledged how the experience could contribute to learning:
I have learned facets of my own personality that I need to modify and adapt… its self-discovery you know …that’s the only thing I have got out the group-work. Other than that, it has been just too stressful. But I suppose if that is the point of it… is to deal with conflict (Lacey1:299).
This type of comment emphasised the pressures these students experienced working with peers. Such pressures were already acknowledged in existing literature. For example, according to both Summers and Volet (2008) and Strauss and Young (2011) uncertainty was created when students were required to work in groups for assessed projects, inducing anxiety which could manifest itself both cognitively and affectively. This was exemplified by a further comment by the same participant:
It [group work] was horrible, I was ready for packing it in because it was just a horrible, horrible experience (Lacey1:476).
Given that both L7 and L10 students cited issues around reflection on group work, I would argue these findings suggested that this kind of reflective activity has implications for how undergraduate students are supported in professional practice and these are considered in Chapter Six.
Another participant raised the question of assumptions about student experiences of reflection:
…because I am older, I have reflected on many aspects of my life over the years but if you say to a 17, 18, 19 year old to reflect, you are assuming that they know how to do it and that assumption shouldn’t be made. There is a huge demographic of students here you know age, sex, ethnicity … and the assumption shouldn’t be made (Lacey1:227).
The above comment, together with the previous comment, seemed to raise questions about the scaffolding and supports put in place to create learning environments conducive to reflection. The issues raised by these participants in relation to the difficulties involved in reflection are addressed in the concluding Chapter in section 6.4.1.
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5.5.1.4 Selling myself
In contrast to their L7 counterparts, the L10 participants appeared to take reflection more as a given with less emphasis on a superficial approach. I would argue that these L10 participants had internalised the arguments around the need to be reflective, taking reflection and sharing reflection as a given in both learning situation and work. As one L10 elaborated:
I know that it is important that I have a ‘can do’ attitude that and that I reflect on all the good grades and all the positivity that I have had… I am full of enterprise and good ideas and stuff... I know that’s important now for getting a job (Lacey1:406).
Like their L7 counterparts, each of the L10 participants saw themselves as objects of self-improvement and enhancement, searching to fit skills and attributes around those desired by employers and in analysing their accounts, I created a new theme from their discussion. It was associated with the idea of self-promotion or self-branding and selling yourself as a package to an employer. I propose this could be seen in the narrow employability related definition of reflection provided by one of the L10 participants:
[Reflection] is looking at it [performance] from an academic point of view and also your life in general and what you have done to
essentially make you more employable (Shadia1:35).
The same participant also presented further evidence of reflection on the attainment of graduate skills:
You learn about what you can bring out of yourself to the employer and what’s relevant and what’s important, what kind of skill set is important for employers (Shadia1:101).
The focus of reflection on graduate skills could have in fact mirrored the
curriculum emphasis on employability at Level 10 in the business programme. As Barrie (2006) has noted, the HE sector has significantly expanded efforts to respond to employer expectations of graduate attributes. In addition, previous research by Kalfa and Taksa (2015) acknowledged that a range of factors
including employers’ influences on definitions of skill had an increasing impact on student learning in experiences of business HE. Here I questioned whether the issue of employability was perhaps no more than a latent assumption underpinning L7 talk of skills development, whereas the idea of selling oneself
145 was more clearly articulated by the L10 participants, who were more attuned to the complexities around employability. For example, all these L10 participants agreed the importance of possessing the skills needed by employers. One participant enthused about a module as:
It’s all about your skills and your attributes and how you can put yourself forward to an employer so it is asking you to really reflect on yourself … that’s all going to be stuff that you are going to use in your CV and your like going for jobs and covering letters or writing a
personal statement (Sharri1:97).
In line with employability literature (Tymon 2013), each of these L10
participants highlighted communication, self-management and interpersonal skills as important to their reflection on employment. These participants also agreed that personal attributes were an inherent part of self-development, with the most commonly mentioned being leadership, dealing with conflict, self- confidence and enthusiasm. As explained in Chapter Four, I began to formulate follow up questions around the two contexts the students spoke of - reflection on learning and reflection on employment, after listening to L10 experiences. At this stage, I had begun to understand the ways the participants conceived of reflection, what the process entailed and the issues they struggled with. However, I was struck by how often the participants would situate reflection in learning and in work. I was interested in possible differences in contexts, struggles and outcomes. I then moved to follow up these topics in second interviews with L10 participants.