Students’ reflective essays as insights into student centred-pedagogies within the undergraduate research methods curriculum

Abstract

In higher education, despite the emphasis on student-centred pedagogical approaches, undergraduate research methods pedagogy remains surprisingly teacher-directed. Consequently, it may lead to research methods students assuming that becoming a researcher involves gathering information rather than it being a continuous developmental process. To combat this idea, a reflective student-centred pedagogical approach is evaluated for encouraging students’ development as researchers. In this study, undergraduate research methods students piloted a research method and produced a reflective essay of their research experience. Qualitative analysis of the students’ reflective essay demonstrated that students showed an awareness of both their research skills such as choosing an appropriate research instrument and their researcher identity such as the metacognition of their research competence. Pedagogical approaches that encourage ‘reflection on action’ in the research curriculum can, therefore, help students to articulate their researcher identity and build their research skills confidence and should be actively promoted

Student perspectives on learning research methods in the social sciences

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What Is the Educational Value of a Student‐Led Conference in Dental Education?

“…Questions such as what is to be assessed and by whom arise. Recent studies demonstrate that faculty across higher education are grappling with such questions, for instance, about how to grade reflective essays written about inquiry learning 37 and defining best practice in assessing group and project work 38 . Certainly, this is a lively area of research with a lot of scope to explore many unsettled challenges.…”

Replication as a Pedagogical Approach to Teaching Undergraduates Qualitative Research Methods

“…As they completed the replication, students were asked to prepare a one-to-two-page reflection on the experience as part of their final project submission to encourage metacognitive skills and to preserve the stated focus on process over outcome (Hosein and Rao 2017). Again, students were not assessed on whether they achieved a particular outcome, but rather how they went about the replication and how well their final product achieved the goals of data access, production transparency, and analytic transparency (Lupia and Elman 2018).…”