Unearthing learners’ conceptions of reflection to innovate business education for the 21st century

The development of learners’ capacities for critical reflection is an important learning outcome for 21st century business education. Theories suggest that a learner holds a particular orientation to reflection, and that this perspective will be influenced by his or her underlying beliefs. This, coupled with an increased focus on the student experience, personal development, and self-regulation in higher education, offers scope for considering instructional design from a second-order perspective, or in other words, from the student’s point of view. This study sought to understand: 1) the ways that business students orientate to reflection, 2) the different conceptions they hold of reflection, and 3) whether there is a relationship between the two. Reflective learning questionnaires were completed by 112 business students studying at the University of Northampton. Survey results showed that while the research instrument was a good fit for investigating orientations to and conceptions of reflection, there did not appear to be a correlation between the two. Learning analytics such as these will be useful for considering how the University can design more meaningful business curricula. However, the disconnect between conceptions of and orientations to reflection needs to be explored through further research

Theory-driven Visual Design to Support Reflective Dietary Practice via mHealth: A Design Science Approach

Design for reflection in human-computer interaction (HCI) has evolved from focusing on an abstract and outcome-driven design subject towards exposing procedural or structural reflection characteristics. Although HCI research has recognized that an individual\u27s reflection is a long-lasting, multi-layered process that can be supported by meaningful design, researchers have made few efforts to derive insights from a theoretical perspective about appropriate translation into end-user visual means. Therefore, we synthesize theoretical knowledge from reflective practice and learning and argue for a differentiation between time contexts of reflection that design needs to address differently. In an interdisciplinary design-science-research project in the mHealth nutrition promotion context, we developed theory-driven guidelines for “reflection-in-action” and “reflection-on-action”. Our final design guidelines emerged from prior demonstrations and a final utility evaluation with mockup artifacts in a laboratory experiment with 64 users. Our iterative design and the resulting design guidelines offer assistance for addressing reflection design by answering reflective practice’s respective contextual requirements. Based on our user study, we show that reflection in terms of “reflection- in-action” benefits from offering actionable choice criteria in an instant timeframe, while “reflection-on-action” profits from the structured classification of behavior-related criteria from a longer, still memorable timeframe

Conflicting values in reflection on professional practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of reflection as a tool of enquiry within the context of higher education work based learning. The aim of the study is to investigate how reflection on professional practice brings about a review of the values underpinning that practice. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected from a group of undergraduate students undertaking their studies by work based learning in the area of management in a Scottish University. An open-ended questionnaire was designed to learn about the participants’ views on their perceived freedom to reflect on their workplace practice in the university, their ability to challenge the organizational values and established practices in the workplace, and on their relationship with the workplace mentor. Findings – Students on work based learning programmes are subjected to demands from at least three directions: first, their own expectations, in terms of both what they want to achieve by way of their own development, second, the needs of their organization; and third, expectations of the university in ensuring that the work produced meets the standard for an academic award. These interests can sometimes coincide, but they can also conflict, and such a conflict can reveal tensions that run deeper into the culture of the organization. Research limitations/implications – This study is based on a relatively small sample of learners in one university, hence the findings are of preliminary nature. Despite the small sample size, the conclusions are indicative of a potential problem in the design of work based learning, and a larger cross-institutional study would allow the validity of these results to be verified. Practical implications – The findings emerging from this study have implications for the facilitators of work based learning in higher education. Although university work based learning programmes differ significantly from corporate learning and development efforts, this paper suggests that work based learning providers should co-operate more closely with the learners’ employing organizations towards creating an environment for learning at work. More co-operation between the university and the employer might be more beneficial for all stakeholders. Originality/value – The literature on work based learning focuses in the main on the use of reflection as a tool of enquiry into workplace practice. Drawing on the study of contemporary work organizations, this paper explores the tensions arising from reflection on the learners’ practice, and possible conflict of values that reflection exposes. Keywords Professional practice, Reflection, Work based learning, Organizational practices, Corporate learning, HE management programmes, Employees, Personal and professional development

Supporting Collaborative Reflection at Work: A Socio-Technical Analysis

This study presents an analysis of a tool that supports collaborative reflection at work. So far, research has focused on individual reflection or reflection in an educational context. Therefore, little is known about designing support for collaborative reflection at work. In four studies that use an application for collaborative reflection support, built based on prior empirical work, the paper presents an analysis of the ways workers used the tool for collaborative reflection. The analysis was based on log data and material from interviews and observations. The results show that there were different ways in which people used the application and that the impact of using it differed among groups. Besides positive effects, open issues in reflection support emerged. The paper presents insights on and design challenges for collaborative reflection support and potential solutions for these challenges. The findings are related to a model of collaborative reflection support and they emphasize that such support needs to be understood as socio-technical in nature if it is to succeed in practice. Finally, the study proposes designs for further work on tools supporting collaborative reflection

Wicked Problems and Gnarly Results: Reflecting on Design and Evaluation Methods for Idiosyncratic Personal Information Management Tasks

This paper is a case study of an artifact design and evaluation process; it is a reflection on how right thinking about design methods may at times result in sub-optimal results. Our goal has been to assess our decision making process throughout the design and evaluation stages for a software prototype in order to consider where design methodology may need to be tuned to be more sensitive to the domain of practice, in this case software evaluation in personal information management. In particular, we reflect on design methods around (1) scale of prototype, (2) prototyping and design process, (3) study design, and (4) study population