works now as a business consultant for governmental and non-governmental organizationsThis paper presents new terms for analyzing individuals' national attitudes and their conceptualization and operationalization, a universal psychological structure in which these concepts interconnect, and a nationalism explanatory model. Three empirical studies using anonymous self-administered surveys served to test and improve national attitude assessment and its developmental theory. These empirical studies were conducted in a wellestablished state (the Netherlands), a recently established state (Slovakia), and a region in which a considerable proportion of citizens are striving to develop a new independent state (the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain).The existing nationalism literature is a conceptual labyrinth characterized by questionable instruments, a lack of valid empirical data, and poor explanatory power (Dekker, 2001;Dekker & Malová, 1995). The concept "nationalism" has different meanings relating to various levels of analysis: nationalism as an ideology, a movement, the process of "nation" and "nation-state" building, and an individual's political orientation. Moreover, several different types and intensities of nationalism are distinguished in disconnected ways. A prime example is that the notion of nationalism is often confused with other national orientations, such as

BackgroundTeacher feedback on student reflective writing is recommended to improve learners’ reflective competence. To be able to improve teacher feedback on reflective writing, it is essential to gain insight into which characteristics of written feedback stimulate students’ reflection processes. Therefore, we investigated (1) which characteristics can be distinguished in written feedback comments on reflective writing and (2) which of these characteristics are perceived to stimulate students’ reflection processes.MethodsWe investigated written feedback comments from forty-three teachers on their students’ reflective essays. In Study 1, twenty-three medical educators grouped the comments into distinct categories. We used Multiple Correspondence Analysis to determine dimensions in the set of comments. In Study 2, another group of twenty-one medical educators individually judged whether the comments stimulated reflection by rating them on a five-point scale. We used t-tests to investigate whether comments classified as stimulating and not stimulating reflection differed in their scores on the dimensions.ResultsOur results showed that characteristics of written feedback comments can be described in three dimensions: format of the feedback (phrased as statement versus question), focus of the feedback (related to the levels of students’ reflections) and tone of the feedback (positive versus negative). Furthermore, comments phrased as a question and in a positive tone were judged as stimulating reflection more than comments at the opposite side of those dimensions (t = (14.5) = 6.48; p = < .001 and t = (15) = −1.80; p < .10 respectively). The effect sizes were large for format of the feedback comment (r = .86) and medium for tone of the feedback comment (r = .42).ConclusionsThis study suggests that written feedback comments on students’ reflective essays should be formulated as a question, positive in tone and tailored to the individual student’s reflective level in order to stimulate students to reflect on a slightly higher level. Further research is needed to examine whether incorporating these characteristics into teacher training helps to improve the quality of written feedback comments on reflective writing.

This study provides a variety of practical insights into implementing mentoring processes in portfolio programmes.