Assessing Student Reflection in a Malaysian Classroom

Studies into reflective thinking in education have proposed a link between reflection and transformative learning. It is thus important for classroom practitioners to be able to identify whether students are reflecting on the subject matter of an academic course that they are undertaking. To this end, reflective journals can provide valuable information regarding the emotional and cognitive processes of the students. This study seeks to identify the level of reflective thinking attained by final year university students in Sabah, Malaysia, who have enrolled in an English for Specific Purposes course. As a preliminary study of the population, degree students from MARA University of Technology Malaysia were sampled and their reflective journals were analysed. The classification was done using a modified coding scheme proposed by past key researchers to classify students into the three categories of non-reflectors, reflectors, and critical reflectors. The results of this study can provide useful insights to course instructors.