Assessing Reflection Writing – Do Teachers know how to assess reflection?

Abstract

As reflective writing is becoming a part of official assessments in many courses, an overarching question arises on whether teachers know how to assess reflections. This presentation includes a study which investigates teachers’ perspectives on the assessment of written reflections by interviewing six university teachers involved in assessing written reflections by 135 students. Teachers’ conceptualisation of reflective writing, approaches to assess reflections, the challenges encountered as well as teacher training received are discussed in the findings. The findings provide some deep insights into how reflection is currently understood among teachers and also offer suggestions for employing reflections in higher education.