Factors Inhibiting the Development Process of Reflective Thinking through Journal Writing: A Literature Review

Reflective journal writing is an innovative and learner-centered activity. In recent years, its use has exponentially increased in both academic and professional education due to its versatile nature and its myriad of evidenced advantages. Such a pedagogical tool has the potential to fulfill diverse functions and serve different purposes. It can be used as a teaching, learning, and assessment tool. Besides this, it can be utilized to stimulate different modes of thinking and hence influences the quality of reflective reasoning. However, reflective journal writing can fail to fulfill this purpose due to a set of inhibiting factors or barriers. There is a range of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that hinder the developmental process of reflective thinking through journal writing and negatively affect its enhancement. This article review, therefore, aimed to expose and synthesize the inhibiting factors existing in the literature. Being conscious of these factors, educators and academics would optimize the design and implementation of reflective journal writing and hence maximize to the fullest the development of students’ reflective thinking.