reflective learning case study

• Reflective learning
• Teaching guidance
• Teaching practices
• Active learning

Reflective learning develops students’ critical thinking skills by analysing experiences to improve future performance.

Reflection has a rich history in education, striving for greater depth of learning through analysing events, activities or learning experiences. Benefits of reflective practice include greater student ownership of subject knowledge, improved meta-cognition, and more thorough comprehension of complex subject content.

While deep reflection is often the goal, this is unlikely to be achieved without planning and guidance for the students. Similarly, assessing student reflection can be difficult. How do I judge that you have effectively reflected when reflection is an inherently personal activity?

We recommend the following resources to provide some help in designing and assessing reflective tasks.

Best practice

Learning activities, technology considerations, case studies, reference and further reading.

There is a range of approaches to support reflective practice. You can use these models as the basis for activities and assessments that support reflection. In planning for reflective learning, adopt a model that is meaningful for you and your students.

SEAL for self-reflection

As a component of the UQ Employability Award, students must reflect upon their community engagement experiences. Consequently, the UQ Employability Office has adapted the SEAL framework for teaching and assessing reflection. SEAL is about the learning process that enables you to determine what you got out of an experience and what you can now do as a result.

Five (5) Rs of reflective practice

Developed by Bain et al (2002), the 5 Rs of reflection provides a tiered student reflection hierarchy.

If you are interested in using the 5Rs of reflection as a model of reflection, consider using this reflection rubric to assess reflective practice.

Source: adapted from Ryan, M. (2013). The pedagogical balancing act: teaching reflection in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education , 18(2), 144-155 and Bain, J., Ballantyne, R., Mills, C. & Lester, N. (2002). Reflecting on practice: Student teachers’ perspectives. Flaxton: Post Pressed.

Face-to-face

Tutorial activity.

Get your students thinking about their learning with a one-page reflection activity. Students will answer guided prompts to sketch their reflections (e.g. One-minute papers ).

Ask students to think about the project/assignment/semester as a whole and break down any barriers that impacted their learning. Students who self-assess their productivity and methods for completing work can apply these skills to understand themselves as a learner better.

Bricolage (i.e. do what you can with what you have)

Students use everyday objects and materials (e.g. magazines, web-based images or memes shared to a PadletUQ  or Zoom whiteboard) to devise and construct their thoughts and understanding. Engaging students with alternate ways to express ideas can help stimulate reflection and overcome the hesitancy some students have in reflecting on their experiences.

Reflection vlog (Video log)

Ask students to reflect on their understanding of the threshold concept through video. This approach can be particularly powerful for students on placement where the video reflections enable students to communicate about and reflect on their experiences quickly. Students vlog can be submitted through Blackboard assignment or ePortfolio .

ePortfolios provide an online space for students to collate, create and populate ideas, to think and understand experiences, artefacts and reflections. Instructors can structure learning with templates and reflective scaffolds. Portfolios can provide a model for ongoing professional development through reflection and documentation of experiences.

Centrally-supported tools

Blackboard journals.

Journals can include links to resources, multimedia and text. It can only be viewed and commented on by teaching staff, and not by other students in the course.

An ePortfolio is an evolving online resource that acts to record, store and archive the artefacts of learning and reflection for an individual learner. Students can include text, multimedia, images or links as part of their reflection.

PadletUQ  be used as an in-class active learning tool to gain immediate feedback from students, facilitate discussion, or as an online activity to check students' understanding of content and identify student misconceptions.

Other tools

• Voice thread

View more case studies (UQ Assessment Ideas Factory)

Session 2: Reflective thinking, reflective learning and academic writing (The Open University)

Bain, J., Ballantyne, R., Mills, C. & Lester, N. (2002) Reflecting on Practice: Student teachers’ perspectives . Flaxton, QLD: Post Pressed

Ryan, M. (2013). The pedagogical balancing act: teaching reflection in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 18 (2), 144-155 and Bain, J., Ballantyne, R., Mills, C. & Lester, N. (2002). Reflecting on practice: Student teachers’ perspectives. Flaxton: Post Pressed

Online employability course, Employ101X MOOC .

• Project-based learning
• Case, scenario, problem, inquiry-based learning
• Collaborative learning
• Experiential learning
• In-class active learning activities

   Resources

• Blog and journals
• Video assignments
• UQ Assessment Ideas Factory

ITaLI offers personalised support services across various areas including reflective learning.

Effectiviology

Reflective Learning: Thinking About the Way You Learn

• Reflective learning involves actively monitoring and assessing your knowledge, abilities, and performance during the learning process, in order to improve the process and its associated outcomes.
• For example, if you’re studying for a test, you can engage in reflective learning by asking yourself how well you understand each of the topics that you’re studying, and based on this figure out which topics you need to spend more time on.

Reflective learning can be beneficial in various ways and in various contexts, so it’s often worthwhile to engage in it. As such, in the following article you will learn more about reflective learning, and see how you can engage in it yourself, as well as how you can encourage others to engage in it.

Examples of reflective learning

An example of reflective learning is a person who starts a new hobby, and asks themself how well they’re learning the new information that comes with the hobby, whether there are any gaps in their knowledge, and which learning strategies they enjoy using the most.

Other examples of reflective learning appear in various domains, both in academia and outside of it. For instance:

• A student taking a difficult course can ask themself which parts of the material they struggle with and why, in order to figure out what they should be focusing on, and how they can modify their learning to make it more effective.
• An intern learning to perform various tasks at their new workplace can assess their ability to perform those tasks, so they can know which tasks they need to ask for help with.
• An athlete who’s preparing for a competition can think about which learning strategies aren’t working well for them and why, and then either improve the way they use those strategies, or replacing those strategies with better ones.

The benefits of reflective learning

There are many potential benefits to reflective learning:

• It can help you assess your situation , for example by prompting you to identify gaps in your knowledge and areas where you need to improve.
• It can help you figure out how to improve your learning process , for example by prompting you to figure out which learning techniques work well for you and which ones don’t.
• It can help you understand yourself better , for example by prompting you to consider what kind of assignments or information you struggle with the most.
• It can help you develop your general metacognitive skills , by training you to think critically about how you learn.
• It can increase your feelings of autonomy and control, by making you feel that you’re actively in charge of your learning process.
• It can increase your motivation to learn, by making you feel more in control of the learning process, and by making that process more deliberate and effective.
• It can improve your learning outcomes , both directly, by helping you modify the learning process, as well as indirectly, through the other benefits that it offers, such as increased motivation.

Accordingly, many studies have shown that reflective learning can lead to personal growth and improved learning. For example, one study found that encouraging students to reflect on what they’re learning and how they learn had a positive impact on their learning outcomes, and had additional benefits when it came to their critical thinking skills and their ability to organize their thoughts. Similarly, another study found that reflective learning helped students process the learning material and link it to material that they’ve encountered previously.

Furthermore, in addition to students, instructors can also benefit from the reflective learning that their students engage in. For example, reflective learning can prompt students to generate helpful feedback that instructors can then use to improve their teaching, for instance by identifying areas where students require more thorough explanations, or by identifying teaching methods that need to be modified.

Overall, reflective learning has various potential benefits, including helping learners assess their situation and improve their learning process, helping learners understand themselves and develop their metacognitive skills, and increasing learners’ feelings of autonomy and control, as well as their motivation. Accordingly, the importance of reflective learning is widely recognized in various fields , and it’s an important part of many education, training, and work programs.

How to be reflective in your learning

Being reflective in your learning means thinking about what you’re learning and how you’re learning it, in a way that helps you understand yourself and your learning better. There are several things that you can reflect on:

• Your understanding of the material. For example, how well you understand certain concepts.
• Your understanding of how to implement what you’ve learned. For example, when and how you can use a certain formula.
• Your learning process. For example, how well certain learning strategies work for you.
• Your abilities, preferences, and thoughts. For example, how difficult or enjoyable you find a certain topic.
• Your goals. For example, where and when you plan to implement something that you’ve learned, and what you hope to achieve by doing so.

You can reflect on these things in various ways and to different degrees.

For example, in some cases, you might engage in quick and shallow reflection while you’re studying, by asking yourself “do I really understand this material?”. Alternatively, in other cases, you might want to engage in slower and deeper reflection, by writing down all the key topics that you’ve learned about, and going over this list to identify areas that you don’t understand well.

Similarly, in some cases, you might want to quickly ask yourself “is this learning technique working well for me?”. Alternatively, in other cases, you might decide to write down a list of all the learning techniques that you’re using, and then rank them based on how effective they are for you. Furthermore, if you do this, you can also ask yourself what all the techniques that work well for you have in common.

When doing all this, you can use various questions to guide your reflection, as shown in the examples above, and the following are some specific questions that you might benefit from using:

• Which parts of the material do I understand well? How do I know that I understand this material well?
• Which parts of the material do I struggle with? What specifically am I struggling with, and why?
• Which learning techniques do I feel are helpful? Why do I feel that they are helpful?
• Which learning techniques do I feel are unhelpful? Why do I feel that they are unhelpful?
• Are there any changes that I can make to my learning process to make it better for me?
• Should I ask someone else for help, either with my reflection or with my learning? If so, then what should I ask about, and who is a good person to ask this?

Keep in mind that it’s often more difficult to engage in reflective learning than it is to simply move forward without reflection, especially in the short term. Accordingly, people often avoid reflection, particularly when they’re under time pressure. However, in the long term, reflective learning can be better, both when it comes directly to your learning outcomes, as well as when it comes to related benefits, such as your general ability to learn and your motivation to do so.

Overall, you can reflect on various aspects of your learning, including your understanding of the material, your understanding of how to implement what you’ve learned, your learning process, and your abilities, preferences, thoughts, and goals. You can encourage and guide reflective learning by asking relevant questions, such as “which parts of the material do I struggle with?”, “which learning techniques work well for me?”, and “is there anything I can do to make my learning process more effective?”.

Note : when engaging in reflective learning, you can also benefit from focusing on knowledge-building , an approach to learning and teaching that involves relatively deep engagement with the study material.

Reflective learning as a shared activity

Reflective learning can be something that you do by yourself or together with others. When done as a shared activity, reflective learning can take many forms. For example, it can involve a group of students openly discussing what challenges they faced while studying for a test, or a one-on-one meeting between a student and a tutor, where the tutor asks the student guiding questions about the student’s learning process.

There are advantages and disadvantages to individual reflection and shared reflection, as well as to the various forms of shared reflection. For example, while shared reflection as part of a group exposes people to more perspectives, which can help them identify more issues with their learning than they would be able to identify in a pair or by themselves, this approach can also make the reflection process much more stressful for people who are shy and struggle to work in groups.

Accordingly, when deciding whether and how to make reflective learning a shared activity, it’s important to consider the situation, and take any potential advantages and disadvantages into account.

Note : when it comes to shared reflective learning, an important concept to be aware of is the protégé effect , which is a psychological phenomenon where teaching, pretending to teach, or preparing to teach information to others helps a person learn that information. This is because the protégé effect means that shared reflective learning can help not only the person who is reflecting, but also those who help them do it.

How to encourage reflective learning in others

To encourage reflective learning in others, you can:

• Explain what reflective learning is.
• Explain why reflective learning can be beneficial.
• Explain how people can generally engage in reflective learning, potentially using relevant examples.
• Explain how they specifically can engage in reflective learning, potentially using relevant examples.
• Create an environment that is conducive to reflective learning, for example by giving people enough time to engage in reflection.
• Guide people’s reflection directly, for example by asking them questions that prompt them to think about their learning.

There are many ways in which you can do this. For example, you can give students a worksheet a day after an important exam, which has questions that guide them through the reflective-learning process. Similarly, you can dedicate 10 minutes at the end of class to having discussions in pairs, where students are encouraged to help each other reflect on their studies.

When encouraging reflective learning in others, you should remember that the end goal is to help them develop their skills and improve their learning outcomes. As such, you want to avoid the potential pitfalls of promoting reflective learning in an inappropriate manner. This can happen, for example, if you make the reflection feel like a pointless exercise, if you push learners to share information that they don’t feel comfortable giving, or if you force learners to use reflection techniques that don’t work well for them.

For example, this means that if you generally use reflective writing as a technique for promoting reflection, but someone feels much more comfortable engaging in reflection through sketching and drawing, then you should consider letting them do so, as long as it’s appropriate given the circumstances.

Reflective learning and reflective practice

Reflective practice involves actively analyzing your experiences and actions, in order to help yourself improve and develop.

The terms reflective learning and reflective practice  refer to similar concepts, and because their definitions vary and even overlap in some cases , they are sometimes used interchangeably.

Nevertheless, one possible way to differentiate between them is to say that people engage in reflective learning with regard to events where learning is the main goal, and in reflective practice with regard to events where learning is not the main goal. For example, a nursing student might engage in reflective learning when learning how to perform a certain procedure, whereas an experienced nurse might engage in reflective practice while performing the same procedure as part of their everyday routine.

Alternatively, it’s possible to view reflective learning as a notable type of reflective practice, which revolves around improving one’s learning in particular.

Overall, there is no clear distinction between reflective practice and reflective learning, and these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, potential distinctions between these terms are generally not important from a practical perspective, since they are unlikely to influence how the underlying concepts are implemented in practice.

Summary and conclusions

• Reflective learning has various potential benefits, including helping learners assess their situation and improve their learning process, helping learners understand themselves and develop their metacognitive skills, and increasing learners’ feelings of autonomy and control, as well as their motivation.
• You can reflect on various aspects of your learning, including your understanding of the material, your understanding of how to implement what you’ve learned, your learning process, and your abilities, preferences, thoughts, and goals.
• You can encourage and guide reflective learning by asking relevant questions, such as “which parts of the material do I struggle with?”, “which learning techniques work well for me?”, and “is there anything I can do to make my learning process more effective?”.

Other articles you may find interesting:

• Knowledge-Telling and Knowledge-Building in Learning and Teaching
• Reflective Practice: Thinking About the Way You Do Things
• The Factors that Determine Success at Learning

• Our Mission

Making Learning Relevant With Case Studies

The open-ended problems presented in case studies give students work that feels connected to their lives.

To prepare students for jobs that haven’t been created yet, we need to teach them how to be great problem solvers so that they’ll be ready for anything. One way to do this is by teaching content and skills using real-world case studies, a learning model that’s focused on reflection during the problem-solving process. It’s similar to project-based learning, but PBL is more focused on students creating a product.

Case studies have been used for years by businesses, law and medical schools, physicians on rounds, and artists critiquing work. Like other forms of problem-based learning, case studies can be accessible for every age group, both in one subject and in interdisciplinary work.

You can get started with case studies by tackling relatable questions like these with your students:

• How can we limit food waste in the cafeteria?
• How can we get our school to recycle and compost waste? (Or, if you want to be more complex, how can our school reduce its carbon footprint?)
• How can we improve school attendance?
• How can we reduce the number of people who get sick at school during cold and flu season?

Addressing questions like these leads students to identify topics they need to learn more about. In researching the first question, for example, students may see that they need to research food chains and nutrition. Students often ask, reasonably, why they need to learn something, or when they’ll use their knowledge in the future. Learning is most successful for students when the content and skills they’re studying are relevant, and case studies offer one way to create that sense of relevance.

Teaching With Case Studies

Ultimately, a case study is simply an interesting problem with many correct answers. What does case study work look like in classrooms? Teachers generally start by having students read the case or watch a video that summarizes the case. Students then work in small groups or individually to solve the case study. Teachers set milestones defining what students should accomplish to help them manage their time.

During the case study learning process, student assessment of learning should be focused on reflection. Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick’s Learning and Leading With Habits of Mind gives several examples of what this reflection can look like in a classroom: 

Journaling: At the end of each work period, have students write an entry summarizing what they worked on, what worked well, what didn’t, and why. Sentence starters and clear rubrics or guidelines will help students be successful. At the end of a case study project, as Costa and Kallick write, it’s helpful to have students “select significant learnings, envision how they could apply these learnings to future situations, and commit to an action plan to consciously modify their behaviors.”

Interviews: While working on a case study, students can interview each other about their progress and learning. Teachers can interview students individually or in small groups to assess their learning process and their progress.

Student discussion: Discussions can be unstructured—students can talk about what they worked on that day in a think-pair-share or as a full class—or structured, using Socratic seminars or fishbowl discussions. If your class is tackling a case study in small groups, create a second set of small groups with a representative from each of the case study groups so that the groups can share their learning.

4 Tips for Setting Up a Case Study

1. Identify a problem to investigate: This should be something accessible and relevant to students’ lives. The problem should also be challenging and complex enough to yield multiple solutions with many layers.

2. Give context: Think of this step as a movie preview or book summary. Hook the learners to help them understand just enough about the problem to want to learn more.

3. Have a clear rubric: Giving structure to your definition of quality group work and products will lead to stronger end products. You may be able to have your learners help build these definitions.

4. Provide structures for presenting solutions: The amount of scaffolding you build in depends on your students’ skill level and development. A case study product can be something like several pieces of evidence of students collaborating to solve the case study, and ultimately presenting their solution with a detailed slide deck or an essay—you can scaffold this by providing specified headings for the sections of the essay.

Problem-Based Teaching Resources

There are many high-quality, peer-reviewed resources that are open source and easily accessible online.

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the University at Buffalo built an online collection of more than 800 cases that cover topics ranging from biochemistry to economics. There are resources for middle and high school students.
• Models of Excellence , a project maintained by EL Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has examples of great problem- and project-based tasks—and corresponding exemplary student work—for grades pre-K to 12.
• The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning at Purdue University is an open-source journal that publishes examples of problem-based learning in K–12 and post-secondary classrooms.
• The Tech Edvocate has a list of websites and tools related to problem-based learning.

In their book Problems as Possibilities , Linda Torp and Sara Sage write that at the elementary school level, students particularly appreciate how they feel that they are taken seriously when solving case studies. At the middle school level, “researchers stress the importance of relating middle school curriculum to issues of student concern and interest.” And high schoolers, they write, find the case study method “beneficial in preparing them for their future.”

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Reflective Practices in Education: A Primer for Practitioners

Haleigh machost.

1 Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22903

Marilyne Stains

Associated data.

Reflective practices in education are widely advocated for and have become important components of professional reviews. The advantages of reflective practices are many; however, the literature often focuses on the benefits to students, rather than the benefits for the educators themselves. Additionally, the extant literature concerning reflective practices in education is laden with conflicting terminology and complex studies, which can inhibit educators’ understanding of reflective practices and prevent their adoption. As such, this Essay serves as a primer for educators beginning reflective practices. It briefly describes the benefits to educators and different classifications and modalities of reflection and examines some of the challenges that educators may encounter.

INTRODUCTION

“Reflection” has become a buzzword in academia and has vast array of implications across fields, disciplines, and subdisciplines. When considering reflection about teaching practices, John Dewey, a psychologist and philosopher who was heavily influential in educational reform, provides a relevant description: reflection is ‘‘the active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” ( Dewey, 1933 , p. 9). The act of reflection in this context is meant to indicate a process , with Dewey highlighting the necessity of active thinking when encountering obstacles and problems. In less philosophical phrasing, reflection entails considering past or present experiences, learning from the outcomes observed, and planning how to better approach similar situations in the future. Consequently, Dewey suggests that educators embark on a journey of continual improvement when engaging in reflective practices. This is in stark contrast to how reflection is used in higher education. For many educators, the only time they engage in reflection is when they are asked to write documents that are used to evaluate whether they should be promoted, receive a raise, or be granted tenure. Reflection, within an evaluation framework, can be counterproductive and prevent meaningful reflections due to perceptions of judgment ( Brookfield, 2017 ).

This gap may result from the particular adaptation of reflections by some academics. The origin of reflective practices lies not in the realm of academia, but rather in professional training. It is often traced back to Donald Schön’s instrumental 1983 work The Reflective Practitioner , which, while aimed at his target audience of nonacademic professionals, has become foundational for reflective practices in teaching ( Munby and Russell, 1989 ).

In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a swampy lowland where situations are confusing “messes” incapable of technical solution. The difficulty is that the problems of the high ground, however great their technical interest, are often relatively unimportant to clients or to the larger society, while in the swamp are the problems of greatest human concern. ( Schön, 1983 , p. 42)

Schön’s work on the education of various professionals gained traction, as he diverged from common norms of the time. In particular, he disagreed with separating knowledge and research from practice, and methods from results ( Schön, 1983 ; Newman, 1999 ). In doing so, he advocated for practical as well as technical knowledge, enabling professionals to develop greater competency in the real-world situations they encounter. Research in the ensuing decades focused on both gaining evidence for the effectiveness of reflective practices ( Dervent, 2015 ; Zahid and Khanam, 2019 ) and understanding the obstacles that can prevent reflective practices from being adopted ( Davis, 2003 ; Sturtevant and Wheeler, 2019 ).

This Essay is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of this work for use by education researchers; rather, the goal of this Essay is to provide a guide, grounded in this literature, to inform beginning reflective practitioners about the benefits of reflections, the different types of reflections that one can engage in, practical advice for engaging in reflective practices, and the potential challenges and corresponding solutions when engaging in reflective practices. It is also intended as a resource for professional development facilitators who are interested in infusing reflective practice within their professional development programs.

WHY SHOULD I ENGAGE IN REFLECTIVE PRACTICES?

Perhaps the best place to begin when discussing reflective practices is with the question “Why do people do it?” It is common to conceptualize reflection about teaching situations as a way to help “fix” any problems or issues that present themselves ( Brookfield, 2017 ). However, this view is counterproductive to the overarching goal of reflective practices—to continually improve one’s own efficacy and abilities as an educator. Similar to how there is always a new, more efficient invention to be made, there is always room for improvement by even the most experienced and well-loved educators. People choose to be educators for any number of personal reasons, but often the grounding desire is to help inform, mentor, or guide the next generation. With such a far-reaching aim, educators face many obstacles, and reflective practices are one tool to help mitigate them.

Classrooms are an ever-changing environment. The students change, and with that comes new generational experiences and viewpoints. Updates to technology provide new opportunities for engaging with students and exploring their understanding. New curricula and pedagogical standards from professional organizations, institutions, or departments can fundamentally alter the modes of instruction and the concepts and skills being taught. As described by Brookfield, reflection can act as a “gyroscope,” helping educators stay balanced amid a changing environment ( 2017 , p. 81). Through the process of reflection, practitioners focus on what drives them to teach and their guiding principles, which define how they interact with both their students and their peers. Furthermore, reflective practitioners are deliberately cognizant of the reasoning behind their actions, enabling them to act with more confidence when faced with a sudden or difficult situation ( Brookfield, 2017 ). In this way, reflection can help guide educators through the challenging times they may experience in their careers.

One such obstacle is imposter syndrome, which is all too familiar for many educators ( Brems et al. , 1994 ; Parkman, 2016 ; Collins et al. , 2020 ). It is a sense that, despite all efforts put in—the knowledge gained, the relationships formed, and the lives changed—what one does is never enough and one does not belong. These feelings often lead to a fear of being “discovered as a fraud or non-deserving professional, despite their demonstrated talent and achievements” ( Chrousos and Mentis, 2020 , p. 749). A part of reflective practices that is often overlooked is the consideration of everything that goes well . While it is true that reflective practitioners are aware of areas for improvement in their teaching, it is also true that they acknowledge, celebrate, and learn from good things that happen in their classrooms and in their interactions with students and peers. As such, they are more consciously aware of their victories, even if those victories happen to be small ( Brookfield, 2017 ). That is not to say that reflective practices are a cure-all for those dealing with imposter syndrome, but reflections can be a reminder that their efforts are paying off and that someone, whether it be students, peers, or even the practitioner themselves, is benefiting from their actions. Furthermore, reflecting on difficult situations has the potential for individuals to realize the extent of their influence ( Brookfield, 2017 ).

In a similar vein, reflective practices can help educators realize when certain expectations or cultural norms are out of their direct ability to address. For example, educators cannot be expected to tackle systemic issues such as racism, sexism, and ableism alone. Institutions must complement educators’ efforts through, for example, establishment of support systems for students excluded because of their ethnicity or race and the implementation of data-driven systems, which can inform the institutions’ and educators’ practices. Thus, through reflections, educators can avoid “self-laceration” ( Brookfield, 2017 , p. 86) and feelings of failure when the problems experienced are multifaceted.

In addition to alleviating “self-laceration,” developing reflective practice and reflective practitioners has been identified as one of four dominant change strategies in the literature ( Henderson et al. , 2011 ). Specifically, developing reflective practitioners is identified as a strategy that empowers individual educators to enact change ( Henderson et al. , 2011 ). One avenue for such change comes with identifying practices that are harmful to students. Reflecting on teaching experiences and student interactions can allow educators to focus on things such as whether an explanatory metaphor is accessible to different types of students in the class (e.g., domestic and international students), if any particular group of students do not work well together, and whether the curriculum is accessible for students from varied educational and cultural backgrounds. Thus, through the process of reflection, educators grow in their ability to help their students on a course level, and they are better positioned to advocate on their students’ behalf when making curricular decisions on a departmental or institutional level.

An additional part of reflection is gathering feedback to enable a holistic view of one’s teaching practices. When feedback is given by a trusted peer, this invaluable information can guide chosen teaching methods and ways of explaining new information. When feedback is given by students and that feedback is then acted upon, it demonstrates to the students that their opinions and experiences are taken seriously and fosters a more trusting environment ( Brookfield, 2017 ). Furthermore, when discrepancies arise between the intention of the teacher and the interpretation of the students, reflection also aids practitioners in verbalizing their reasoning. Through reflection, educators would need to consider past experiences, prior knowledge, and beliefs that led to their actions. As such, reflective practitioners are able to have honest and informed discussions with their students who may be confused or unhappy with a particular decision. Explaining this to students not only models the practice of continuous inquiry and of considering one’s actions, but it also allows students to understand the rationale behind decisions they may not personally agree with, fostering a more productive student–teacher relationship ( Brookfield, 2017 ).

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF REFLECTION?

This section aims to summarize and clarify the different ways reflection has been conceptualized in the literature ( Table 1 ). Specifically, reflections have been described based on their timing, depth, and content. Notably, practitioners of reflective practices must utilize multiple types of reflection in order to more effectively improve different aspects of their teaching ( Griffiths and Tann, 1992 ).

The various conceptualizations and associated types of reflections along with examples of guiding questions

Time-Dependent

To understand the time-dependent conceptualization of reflection, we return to Schön (1983 ). He defines two particular concepts—“reflection-in-action” and “reflection-on-action”—which are delineated based on the time that the reflection takes place. Reflection-in-action is characterized as practitioners reflecting while simultaneously completing the relevant action. Reflection-on-action encompasses a practitioner reflecting on a past action, analyzing the different influences, and carefully considering the observed or potential outcomes. Reflection-in-action is perceived as more difficult due to the multiple factors that teachers have to consider at once while also ensuring that the lesson carries on.

Later work built on this initial description of time-dependent reflections. In particular, Loughran renamed the original two timings to make them more intuitive and added one time point ( Loughran, 2002a ). The three categories include: “anticipatory,” “contemporaneous,” and “retrospective,” wherein actions taken, or to be taken, are contemplated before, during, and after an educating experience, respectively. It should be noted that both Loughran’s and Schön’s models are able to function in tandem with the depth- or content-based understandings of reflections, which are described in the next sections.

Depth of Reflections

Conceptualizing reflection in terms of depth has a long history in the literature (see Section 5.1 in the Supplemental Material for a historical view of the depth-based model of reflections). Thankfully, Larrivee (2008a) designed a depth-classification system that encompasses an array of terminologies and explanations pre-existing in the literature. This classification includes a progression in reflective practices across four levels: “pre-reflection,” “surface,” “pedagogical,” and “critical reflection.”

During the pre-reflection stage, educators do not engage in reflections. They are functioning in “survival mode” ( Larrivee, 2008a , p. 350; Campoy, 2010 , p. 17), reacting automatically to situations without considering alternatives and the impacts on the students ( Larrivee, 2008a ; Campoy, 2010 ). At this stage, educators may feel little agency, consider themselves the victims of coincidental circumstances, or attribute the ownership of problems to others such as their students, rather than themselves ( Larrivee, 2008a ; Campoy, 2010 ). They are unlikely to question the status quo, thereby failing to consider and adapt to the needs of the various learners in their classrooms ( Larrivee, 2008a ; Campoy, 2010 ). While the description of educators at this level is non-ideal, educators at the pre-reflection level are not ill intended. However, the pre-reflective level is present among practitioners, as evidenced in a 2015 study investigating 140 English as a Foreign Language educators and a 2010 analysis of collected student reflections ( Campoy, 2010 ; Ansarin et al. , 2015 ). The presence of pre-reflective educators is also readily apparent in the authors’ ongoing research. As such, being aware of the pre-reflection stage is necessary for beginning practitioners, and this knowledge is perhaps most useful for designers of professional development programs.

The first true level of reflection is surface reflection. At this level, educators are concerned about achieving a specific goal, such as high scores on standardized tests. However, these goals are only approached through conforming to departmental norms, evidence from their own experiences, or otherwise well-established practices ( Larrivee, 2008a ). In other words, educators at this level question whether the specific pedagogical practices will achieve their goals, but they do not consider any new or nontraditional pedagogical practices or question the current educational policies ( Campoy, 2010 ). Educators’ reflections are grounded in personal assumptions and influenced by individuals’ unexamined beliefs and unconscious biases.

At the pedagogical level, educators “reflect on educational goals, the theories underlying approaches, and the connections between theoretical principles and practice.” ( Larrivee, 2008a , p. 343). At this level, educators also consider their own belief systems and how those systems relate to their practices and explore the problem from different perspectives. A representative scenario at this level includes: teachers contemplating their various teaching methods and considering their observed outcomes in student comprehension, alternative viewpoints, and also the current evidence-based research in education. Subsequently, they alter (or maintain) their previous teaching practices to benefit the students. In doing so, more consideration is given to possible factors than in surface reflection. This category is quite broad due to the various definitions present in the literature ( Larrivee, 2008a ). However, there is a common emphasis on the theory behind teaching practices, ensuring that practice matches theory, and the student outcomes of enacted teaching practices ( Larrivee, 2008a ).

The last level of reflection categorized by Larrivee is critical reflection, wherein educators consider the ethical, moral, and political ramifications of who they are and what they are teaching to their students ( Larrivee, 2008a ). An approachable way of thinking about critical reflection is that the practitioners are challenging their assumptions about what is taught and how students learn. In doing so, educators evaluate their own views, assertions, and assumptions about teaching, with attention paid to how such beliefs impact students both as learners and as individuals ( Larrivee, 2005 , 2008b ). Through practicing critical reflection, societal issues that affect teaching can be uncovered, personal views become evidence based rather than grounded in assumptions, and educators are better able to help a diverse student population.

Larrivee used this classification to create a tool for measuring the reflectivity of teachers (see Section 4.1 of the Supplemental Material).

Content of Reflections

The third type of reflection is one in which what is being reflected on is the defining feature. One such example is Valli’s five types of reflection ( 1997 ): “technical reflection,” “reflection-in and on-action,” “deliberative reflection,” “personalistic reflection,” and “critical reflection.” Note that Valli’s conceptions of the two types of reflection—reflection-in and on-action, and critical reflection—are congruent with the descriptions provided in the Time-Dependent and Depth sections of this Essay , respectively, and will thus not be detailed in this section.

In a technical reflection, educators evaluate their instructional practices in light of the findings from the research on teaching and learning ( Valli, 1997 ). The quality of this type of reflection is based on the educators’ knowledge of this body of work and the extent to which their teaching practices adhere to it. For example, educators would consider whether they are providing enough opportunities for their students to explain their reasoning to one another during class. This type of reflection does not focus on broader topics such as the structure and content of the curriculum or issues of equity.

Deliberative reflection encompasses “a whole range of teaching concerns, including students, the curriculum, instructional strategies, the rules and organization of the classroom” ( Valli, 1997 , p. 75). In this case, “deliberative” comes from the practitioners having to debate various external viewpoints and perspectives or research that maybe be in opposition. As such, they have an internal deliberation when deciding on the best actions for their specific teaching situations. The quality of the reflection is based on the educators’ ability to evaluate the various perspectives and provide sound reasoning for their decisions.

Personalistic reflection involves educators’ personal growth as well as the individual relationships they have with their students. Educators engaged in this type of reflection thoughtfully explore the relationships between their personal and professional goals and consider the various facets of students’ lives with the overarching aim of providing the best experience. The quality of the reflection is based on an educator’s ability to empathize.

To manage the limitations of each type of reflections, Valli recommended that reflective practitioners not focus solely on a specific type of reflection, but rather engage with multiple types of reflections, as each addresses different questions. It is important to note that some types of reflections may be prerequisite to others and that some may be more important than others; for example, Valli stated that critical reflections are more valuable than technical reflections, as they address the important issues of justice. The order of Valli’s types of reflection provided in Table 1 reflects her judgment on the importance of the questions that each type of reflection addresses.

HOW CAN I ENGAGE IN REFLECTION?

Larrivee suggested that there is not a prescribed strategy to becoming a reflective practitioner but that there are three practices that are necessary: 1) carving time out for reflection, 2) constantly problem solving, and 3) questioning the status quo ( Larrivee, 2000 ). This section of the Essay provides a buffet of topics for consideration and methods of organization that support these three practices. This section is intended to assist educators in identifying their preferred mode of reflection and to provide ideas for professional development facilitators to explicitly infuse reflective practices in their programs.

For educators who are new to reflective practices, it is useful to view the methods presented as “transforming what we are already doing, first and foremost by becoming more aware of ourselves, others, and the world within which we live” ( Rodgers and Laboskey, 2016 , p. 101) rather than as a complete reformation of current methods.

Focus of the Reflection: Critical Incident

When practicing reflection, a critical incident may be identified or presented in order to ignite the initial reflection or to foster deeper thought by practitioners ( Tripp, 2011 ). Critical incidents are particular situations that become the focus of reflections. Farrell described critical incidents in education as unplanned events that hold the potential to highlight misconceptions and foster greater and newer understanding about teaching and learning ( 2008 ). These can be situations ranging from students not understanding a foundational concept from a previous course to considering how to navigate the analysis of a data set that includes cultural background and socioeconomic status.

Critical incidents are used, because meaningful reflection is often a result of educators experiencing a problem or some form of cognitive dissonance concerning teaching practices and approaches to their students ( Lee, 2005 ). Therefore, it is most effective to combine techniques, which are outlined later in this section, with a critical incident to force practitioners into a new and difficult positions relating to education. Larrivee details that a sense of “uncertainty, dissonance, dilemma, problem, or conflict” is extremely valuable to personal reflection and growth ( 2008b , p. 93). Thus, unsettling experiences encourage changes to action far more than reflecting on typical teaching/learning interactions. This is an inherently uncomfortable experience for the practitioner, as feelings of self-doubt, uncertainty, anger, and self- or peer-rejection can come to the surface ( Larrivee, 2008b ). Yet, it is when educators are in an uncomfortable position that they are best able to challenge their learned assertions about what they are teaching and how they are supporting their students’ learning. This requires a conscious effort on the part of the educator. Humans tend to function automatically based on their past experiences and ingrained beliefs. This results in certain aspects of events being ignored while others become the driving force behind reactions. In a sense, humans have a “filter system” that can unconsciously eliminate the most effective course of action; this results in humans functioning in a cycle in which current, unquestioned beliefs determine which data and experiences are given attention ( Larrivee, 2000 , p. 295).

Critical incidents highlight any dissonance present in one’s actions, enabling practitioners to tackle social, ethical, political, and pedagogical issues that may be systemic to their departments, their fields, or their cultures. Critical incidents foster critical reflection (under the depth- and content-based models) even in novice teachers ( Pultorak, 1996 ; Griffin, 2003 ). It is because of the difficulty and uncertainty posed by critical incidents that they are widely promoted as an invaluable aspect of reflective practices in education. Therefore, the analysis of critical incidents, whether they are case studies or theoretical examples, has been used in educating both pre-service ( Griffin, 2003 ; Harrison and Lee, 2011 ) and current educators ( Benoit, 2013 ).

Scaffoldings Promoting Reflections

Once a critical incident has been identified, the next step is structuring the reflection itself. Several scaffolding models exist in the literature and are described in Section 3 of the Supplemental Material. As reflections are inherently personal, educators should use the scaffolding that works best for them. Two scaffoldings that have been found to be useful in developing reflective practices are Bain’s 5R and Gibbs’s reflective cycle.

Bain et al. (2002) created the 5R framework to support the development of pre-service teachers into reflective practitioners. The framework includes the following five steps ( Bain et al. , 2002 ):

• Reporting involves considering a particular experience and the contextual factors that surround it.
• Responding is when the individual practitioners verbalize their feelings, thoughts, and other reactions that they had in response to the situation.
• Relating is defined as teachers making connections between what occurred recently and their previously obtained knowledge and skill base.
• Reasoning then encourages the practitioners to consider the foundational concepts and theories, as well as other factors that they believe to be significant, in an effort to understand why a certain outcome was achieved or observed.
• Finally, reconstructing is when the teachers take their explanations and uses them to guide future teaching methods, either to encourage a similar result or to foster a different outcome.

This framework facilitates an understanding of what is meant by and required for reflective practices. For a full explanation of Bain’s scaffolding and associated resources, see Sections 1.2 and 3.3 in the Supplemental Material.

A popular scaffolding for promoting reflective practices is the reflective learning cycle described by Gibbs (1988) . This cycle for reflection has been extensively applied in teacher preparation programs and training of health professionals ( Husebø et al. , 2015 ; Ardian et al. , 2019 ; Markkanen et al. , 2020 ). The cycle consists of six stages:

• Description: The practitioner first describes the situation to be reflected on in detail.
• Feelings: The practitioner then explores their feelings and thoughts processes during the situation.
• Evaluation: The practitioner identifies what went well and what went wrong.
• Analysis: The practitioner makes sense of the situation by exploring why certain things went well while others did not.
• Conclusions: The practitioner summarizes what they learned from their analysis of the situation.
• Personal action plans: The practitioner develops a plan for what they would do in a similar situation in the future and what other steps they need to take based on what they learn (e.g., gain some new skills or knowledge).

For a full explanation of Gibbs’s scaffolding and associated resources, see Sections 1.3 and 3.4 in the Supplemental Material.

We see these two models as complementary and have formulated a proposed scaffolding for reflection by combining the two models. In Table 2 , we provide a short description of each step and examples of reflective statements. The full scaffolding is provided in Section 3.6 of the Supplemental Material.

Proposed scaffolds for engaging in reflective practices a

a An expanded version is provided in Section 3.6 of the Supplemental Material.

Even with the many benefits of these scaffolds, educators must keep in mind the different aspects and levels of reflection that should be considered. Especially when striving for higher levels of reflection, the cultural, historical, and political contexts must be considered in conjunction with teaching practices for such complex topics to affect change ( Campoy, 2010 ). For instance, if equity and effectiveness of methods are not contemplated, there is no direct thought about how to then improve those aspects of practice.

Modalities for Reflections

The different scaffolds can be implemented in a wide variety of practices ( Table 3 ). Of all the various methods of reflection, reflective writing is perhaps the most often taught method, and evidence has shown that it is a deeply personal practice ( Greiman and Covington, 2007 ). Unfortunately, many do not continue with reflective writing after a seminar or course has concluded ( Jindal‐Snape and Holmes, 2009 ). This may be due to the concern of time required for the physical act of writing. In fact, one of the essential practices for engaging in effective reflections is creating a space and time for personal, solitary reflection ( Larrivee, 2000 ); this is partially due to the involvement of “feelings of frustration, insecurity, and rejection” as “taking solitary time helps teachers come to accept that such feelings are a natural part of the change process” while being in a safe environment ( Larrivee, 2000 , p. 297). It is important to note that reflective writing is not limited to physically writing in a journal or typing into a private document; placing such a limitation may contribute to the practice being dropped, whereas a push for different forms of reflection will keep educators in practice ( Dyment and O'Connell, 2014 ). Reflective writings can include documents such as case notes ( Jindal‐Snape and Holmes, 2009 ), reviewing detailed lesson plans ( Posthuma, 2012 ), and even blogging ( Alirio Insuasty and Zambrano Castillo, 2010 ; van Wyk, 2013 ; Garza and Smith, 2015 ).

Common methods to engage in reflective practices

The creation of a blog or other online medium can help foster reflection. In addition to fostering reflection via the act of writing on an individual level, this online form of reflective writing has several advantages. One such benefit is the readily facilitated communication and collaboration between peers, either through directly commenting on a blog post or through blog group discussions ( Alirio Insuasty and Zambrano Castillo, 2010 ; van Wyk, 2013 ; Garza and Smith, 2015 ). “The challenge and support gained through the collaborative process is important for helping clarify beliefs and in gaining the courage to pursue beliefs” ( Larrivee, 2008b , p. 95). By allowing other teachers to comment on published journal entries, a mediator role can be filled by someone who has the desired expertise but may be geographically distant. By this same logic, blogs have the great potential to aid teachers who themselves are geographically isolated.

Verbal reflections through video journaling (vlogs) follows the same general methods as writing. This method has the potential to be less time intensive ( Clarke, 2009 ), which may lower one of the barriers facing practitioners. Greiman and Covington (2007) identified verbal reflection as one of the three preferred modalities of reflection by student teachers. By recording their verbal contemplations and reflections, practitioners can review their old thoughts about different course materials, enabling them to adjust their actions based on reflections made when observations were fresh in their mind. Students learning reflective practices also noted that recorded videos convey people’s emotions and body language—reaching a complexity that is not achievable with plain text or audio ( Clarke, 2009 ).

If writing or video journaling is not appealing, another method to facilitate reflective practices is that of making video recordings of teaching experiences in vivo. This differs from vlogs, which are recorded after the teaching experiences. A small longitudinal qualitative study indicated that the video recordings allowed participants to be less self-critical and to identify effective strategies they were employing ( Jindal‐Snape and Holmes, 2009 ). Additionally, beginning teachers found the most value in videotaping their teaching as compared with electronic portfolios and online discussions ( Romano and Schwartz, 2005 ). By recording their teaching practices, practitioners can use a number of clearly outlined self- and peer-assessments, as detailed in Section 4 of the Supplemental Material. However, it should be noted that all three technology-driven methods used in the study by Romano and Schwartz (2005) were helpful for the participants, and as reflective practices are inherently personal, many methods should be considered by practitioners new to purposeful reflection.

Group efforts, such as group discussions or community meetings, can foster reflective thinking, thereby encouraging reflective practices. “The checks and balances of peers’ and critical friends’ perspectives can help developing teachers recognize when they may be devaluing information or using self-confirming reasoning, weighing evidence with a predisposition to confirm a belief or theory, rather than considering alternative theories that are equally plausible” ( Larrivee, 2008b , p. 94). These benefits are essential to help educators reach the higher levels of reflection (i.e., pedagogical reflection and critical reflection), as it can be difficult to think of completely new viewpoints on one’s own, especially when educators are considering the needs of diverse students yet only have their own experiences to draw upon. Henderson et. al . (2011) review of the literature found that successful reports of developing reflective practitioners as a strategy for change had two commonalities. One of these was the presence of either a community where experiences are shared ( Gess-Newsome et al. , 2003 ; Henderson et al. , 2011 ) or of an additional participant providing feedback to the educator ( Penny and Coe, 2004 ; McShannon and Hynes, 2005 ; Henderson et al. , 2011 ). The second commonality was the presence of support by a change agent ( Hubball et al. , 2005 ; Henderson et al. , 2011 ), which is far more context reliant.

Even in the absence of change agent support, peer observation can be implemented as a tool for establishing sound reflective practices. This can be accomplished through informal observations followed by an honest discussion. It is vital for the correct mindset to be adopted during such a mediation session, as the point of reflection is in assessing the extent to which practitioners’ methods allow them to achieve their goals for student learning. This cannot be done in an environment where constructive feedback is seen as a personal critique. For example, it was found that peers who simply accepted one another’s practices out of fear of damaging their relationships did not benefit from peer observation and feedback ( Manouchehri, 2001 ); however, an initially resistant observer was able to provide valuable feedback after being prompted by the other participant ( Manouchehri, 2001 ). One approach to ensure the feedback promotes reflections is for the observer and participant to meet beforehand and have a conversation about areas on which to focus feedback. The follow-up conversation focuses first on these areas and can be expanded afterward to other aspects of the teaching that the observer noticed. Observation protocols (provided in Section 4.2 in the Supplemental Material) can also be employed in these settings to facilitate the focus of the reflection.

For those interested in assessing their own or another’s reflection, Section 4 in the Supplemental Material will be helpful, as it highlights different tools that have been shown to be effective and are adaptable to different situations.

WHAT BARRIERS MIGHT I FACE?

It is typical for educators who are introducing new practices in their teaching to experience challenges both at the personal and contextual levels ( Sturtevant and Wheeler, 2019 ). In this section, we address the personal and contextual barriers that one may encounter when engaging in reflective practices and provide advice and recommendations to help address these barriers. We also aim to highlight that the difficulties faced are commonly shared by practitioners embarking on the complex journey of becoming reflective educators.

Personal Barriers

Professional development facilitators who are interested in supporting their participants’ growth as reflective practitioners will need to consider: 1) the misunderstandings that practitioners may have about reflections and 2) the need to clearly articulate the purpose and nature of reflective practices. Simply asking practitioners to reflect will not lead to desirable results ( Loughran, 2002b ). Even if the rationale and intent is communicated, there is also the pitfall of oversimplification. Practitioners may stop before the high levels of reflection (e.g., critical reflection) are reached due to a lack of in-depth understanding of reflective practices ( Thompson and Pascal, 2012 ). Even if the goals are understood and practitioners intend to evaluate their teaching practices on the critical level, there can still be confusion about what reflective practices require from practitioners. The theory of reflective practices may be grasped, but it is not adequately integrated into how practitioners approach teaching ( Thompson and Pascal, 2012 ). We hope that this Essay and associated Supplemental Material provide a meaningful resource to help alleviate this challenge.

A concern often raised is that the level of critical reflection is not being reached ( Ostorga, 2006 ; Larrivee, 2008a ). Considering the impacts that student–teacher interactions have on students beyond the classroom is always a crucial part of being an educator. In terms of practicality, situations being considered may not be conducive to this type of reflection. Consider an educator who, after a formative assessment, realizes that students, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, or gender, did not grasp a foundational topic that is required for the rest of the course. In such a case, it is prudent to consider how the information was taught and to change instructional methods to adhere to research-based educational practices. If the information was presented in a lecture-only setting, implementing aspects of engagement, exploration, and elaboration on the subject by the students can increase understanding ( Eisenkraft, 2003 ). If the only interactions were student–teacher based and all work was completed individually, the incorporation of student groups could result in a deeper understanding of the material by having students act as teachers or by presenting students with alternative way of approaching problems (e.g., Michaelsen et al. , 1996 ). Both of these instructional changes are examples that can result from pedagogical reflection and are likely to have a positive impact on the students. As such, educators who practice any level of reflection should be applauded. The perseverance and dedication of practitioners cannot be undervalued, even if their circumstances lead to fewer instances of critical reflection. We suggest that communities of practice such as faculty learning communities, scholarship of teaching and learning organizations, or professional development programs are excellent avenues to support educators ( Baker et al. , 2014 ; Bathgate et al. , 2019 ; Yik et al. , 2022a , b ), including in the development of knowledge and skills required to reach critical reflections. For example, facilitators of these communities and programs can intentionally develop scaffolding and exercises wherein participants consider whether the deadlines and nature of assignments are equitable to all students in their courses. Professional development facilitators are strongly encouraged to be explicit about the benefits to individual practitioners concomitantly with the benefits to students (see Section 2 in the Supplemental Material), as benefits to practitioners are too often ignored yet comprise a large portion of the reasoning behind reflective practices.

At a practitioner’s level, the time requirement for participating in reflective practices is viewed as a major obstacle, and it would be disingenuous to discount this extensive barrier ( Greiman and Covington, 2007 ). Reflective practices do take time, especially when done well and with depth. However, we argue that engagement in reflective practice early on can help educators become more effective with the limited time they do have ( Brookfield, 2017 ). As educators engage in reflective practices, they become more aware of their reasoning, their teaching practices, the effectiveness of said practices, and whether their actions are providing them with the outcomes they desire ( Thompson and Pascal, 2012 ). Therefore, they are able to quickly and effectively troubleshoot challenges they encounter, increasing the learning experiences for their students. Finally, we argue that the consistent engagement in reflective practices can significantly facilitate and expedite the writing of documents necessary for annual evaluations and promotions. These documents often require a statement in which educators must evaluate their instructional strategies and their impact on students. A reflective practitioner would have a trail of documents that can easily be leveraged to write such statement.

Contextual Factors

Environmental influences have the potential to bring reflective practices to a grinding halt. A paradigm shift that must occur to foster reflective teacher: that of changing the teacher’s role from a knowledge expert to a “pedagogic expert” ( Day, 1993 ). As with any change of this magnitude, support is necessary across all levels of implementation and practitioners to facilitate positive change. Cole (1997) made two observations that encapsulate how institutions can prevent the implementation of reflective practices: first, many educators who engage in reflective practices do so secretly. Second, reflections are not valued in academic communities despite surface-level promotions for such teaching practices; institutions promote evidence-based teaching practices, including reflection, yet instructors’ abilities as educators do not largely factor into promotions, raises, and tenure ( Brownell and Tanner, 2012 ; Johnson et al. , 2018 ). The desire for educators to focus on their teaching can become superficial, with grants and publications mattering more than the results of student–teacher interactions ( Cole, 1997 ; Michael, 2007 ).

Even when teaching itself is valued, the act of changing teaching methods can be resisted and have consequences. Larrivee’s (2000) statement exemplifies this persistent issue:

Critically reflective teachers also need to develop measures of tactical astuteness that will enable them to take a contrary stand and not have their voices dismissed. One way to keep from committing cultural suicide is to build prior alliances both within and outside the institution by taking on tasks that demonstrate school loyalty and build a reputation of commitment. Against a history of organizational contributions, a teacher is better positioned to challenge current practices and is less readily discounted. (p. 298)

The notion that damage control must be a part of practicing reflective teaching is indicative of a system that is historically opposed to the implementation of critical reflection ( Larrivee, 2000 ). We view this as disheartening, as the goal of teaching should be to best educate one’s students. Even as reflective practices in teaching are slowly becoming more mainstream, contextual and on-site influences still have a profound impact on how teachers approach their profession ( Smagorinsky, 2015 ). There must be a widespread, internal push for change within departments and institutions for reflective practices to be easily and readily adopted.

The adoption of reflective practices must be done in a way that does not negate its benefits. For example, Galea (2012) highlights the negative effects of routinizing or systematizing this extremely individual and circumstance-based method (e.g., identification of specific areas to focus on, standardized timing and frequency of reflections). In doing so, the systems that purportedly support teachers using reflection remove their ability to think of creative solutions, limit their ability to develop as teachers, and can prevent an adequate response to how the students are functioning in the learning environment ( Tan, 2008 ). Effective reflection can be stifled when reflections are part of educators’ evaluations for contract renewal, funding opportunities, and promotions and tenure. Reflective practices are inherently vulnerable, as they involve both being critical of oneself and taking responsibility for personal actions ( Larrivee, 2008b ). Being open about areas for improvement is extremely difficult when it has such potential negative impacts on one’s career. However, embarking on honest reflection privately, or with trusted peers and mentors, can be done separately from what is presented for evaluation. We argue that reflections can support the writing of documents to be considered for evaluation, as these documents often request the educators to describe the evolution of their teaching and its impact on students. Throughout course terms, reflections conducted privately can provide concreate ideas for how to frame an evaluation document. We argue that administrators, department chairs, and members of tenure committees should be explicit with their educators about the advantages of reflective practices in preparing evaluative documents focused on teaching.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Reflective practices are widely advocated for in academic circles, and many teaching courses and seminars include information regarding different methods of reflection. This short introduction intends to provide interested educators with a platform to begin reflective practices. Common methods presented may appeal to an array of educators, and various self- and peer-assessment tools are highlighted in Section 4 in the Supplemental Material. Reflective practices are a process and a time- and energy-intensive, but extremely valuable tool for educators when implemented with fidelity. Therefore, reflection is vital for efficacy as an educator and a requirement for educators to advance their lifelong journeys as learners.

To conclude, we thought the simple metaphor provided by Thomas Farrell best encapsulates our thoughts on reflective practices within the context of teaching: Reflective practices are “a compass of sorts to guide teachers when they may be seeking direction as to what they are doing in their classrooms. The metaphor of reflection as a compass enables teachers to stop, look, and discover where they are at that moment and then decide where they want to go (professionally) in the future” ( Farrell, 2012 , p. 7).

Supplementary Material

Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank Annika Kraft, Jherian Mitchell-Jones, Emily Kable, Dr. Emily Atieh, Dr. Brandon Yik, Dr. Ying Wang, and Dr. Lu Shi for their constructive feedback on previous versions of this article. This material is based upon work supported by NSF 2142045. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Learning By Thinking: How Reflection Improves Performance

• Learning from direct experience can be more effective if coupled with reflection-that is, the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience.
• Reflecting on what has been learned makes experience more productive.
• Reflection builds one's confidence in the ability to achieve a goal (i.e., self-efficacy), which in turn translates into higher rates of learning.

Author Abstract

Research on learning has primarily focused on the role of doing (experience) in fostering progress over time. In this paper, we propose that one of the critical components of learning is reflection, or the intentional attempt to synthesize, abstract, and articulate the key lessons taught by experience. Drawing on dual-process theory, we focus on the reflective dimension of the learning process and propose that learning can be augmented by deliberately focusing on thinking about what one has been doing. We test the resulting dual-process learning model experimentally, using a mixed-method design that combines two laboratory experiments with a field experiment conducted in a large business process outsourcing company in India. We find a performance differential when comparing learning-by-doing alone to learning-by-doing coupled with reflection. Further, we hypothesize and find that the effect of reflection on learning is mediated by greater perceived self-efficacy. Together, our results shed light on the role of reflection as a powerful mechanism behind learning.

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Case studies and template

Case studies to help you to reflect on your practice.

These case studies will help you to reflect on your practice, and provide a summary of reflective models that can help aid your reflections and make them more effective.

Templates are also provided to guide your own activities. Remember, there is no set way to reflect and you can adapt these activities to suit your learning style and your role.

Your reflection should be about learning and improving your practice. If you’d like to see how reflection has impacted the practice of some of our registrants, watch this short video.

Getting started

Here are some tips to think about when you set out to reflect.

Sole practitioners' group

Case study: Carl is a podiatrist working in independent practise. He is a sole practitioner and has run his business for 10 years

Group reflection within a team

Case study: Munira is a physiotherapist working in private practice. She has treated her service user Russel for the last three months after he was involved in a fall at home.

Reflecting by yourself

Case study: Emily is a dietitian working in an NHS Trust hospital. She also volunteers at a local charity that raises awareness about diabetes at events and conferences

Reflective practice template

Template to help you guide your own activities

Reflective practice 101

Why and how to incorporate reflective practice into your teaching and learning

Natalie K.D. Seedan

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Ai and assessment redesign: a four-step process, upgrade your teaching: four instant improvement tips, the cruel optimism of research careers: how to support contract workers, create an onboarding programme for neurodivergent students.

“Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one’s actions so as to engage in a process of continuous learning,” according to American philosopher and professor Donald Schön. It is used in occupations such as medicine and teaching to recall actions taken over a period and their possible or real impact on their patients/students and to identify areas for improvement.

In addition to helping you improve your teaching, engaging in reflective practice can also demonstrate your commitment to continuous skills enhancement for the benefit of both your students and your university.

Reflective practice will look different to everyone. Some might prefer keeping a journal, while others might use electronic spreadsheets or one of the many teaching checklists available online or through your university’s centre for teaching and learning.

The more detailed you are in your reflection, the more improvements you can make. If you can also quantify the impact of your changes (for example, by demonstrating that your new methods resulted in a 40 per cent increase in lecture attendance) it can not only boost confidence, but also serve as a valuable piece of evidence that could work in your favour for contract renewal or promotion. 

Strategies for enhancing your reflective practice

Ask your students: seek your students’ opinions on your teaching and learning strategies during lectures, labs and so on, then implement their feedback for future course iterations.

I have used the “stop, start, continue” method with mine around the third week of teaching. This involves asking them what they think I should stop and start doing and what I should continue to do to improve their experience. The responses you get during this exercise might surprise you, because they could highlight issues you won’t have been aware of, such as lack of access to learning materials. They might also absolutely love what you’re doing so far and tell you so! 

Another method of gathering feedback is through the course reviews. These end-of-semester surveys can be disseminated to students through your university’s student experience team and encourage students to share their thoughts on course design, teaching and learning activities and assessments. If you decide to use this method, you might benefit from additional analytics prepared for you, such as charts and graphs, that offer a visual representation of your results. 

Do not be overly hard on yourself if you receive less-than-pleasing reviews from some students. Try to remember that they want the best experience for themselves and others who might come after, and their feedback is intended to help you improve. 

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Ask your peers: asking your fellow lecturers’ thoughts on your teaching practices can enhance your reflective practice further. You can do this by organising reciprocal classroom observation visits where you can be each other’s student for a day. You don’t necessarily have to stick to staff in your faculty or department – you can learn other ways to engage students from staff outside your discipline.

Decide beforehand what you’d like your peer to focus on during your teaching session and then ask them to record how they thought you did and offer objective suggestions for improvement. You may or may not wish to score each other at the end. Applying this method helps to increase peer support and collegiality , which is vital in university teaching and learning environments.

Ask yourself: self-reflection is the final step in creating a robust reflective practice. You can do this by reviewing your teaching philosophy statement and editing it if appropriate, asking yourself questions such as “How have I changed or grown as a lecturer between when I wrote this previous version and now?” You can try to do this on an annual basis for maximum effect.

You can also complete a self-review checklist looking at aspects of your teaching such as the use of educational technology, knowledge of current trends and online resources for your subject, and authentic assessment design . 

Reflective practice should be one of the cornerstones of your teaching, especially at the tertiary level of education. Seeking constructive input from those around you, such as students and peers, and engaging in self-reflection will keep your pedagogical skills sharp and your teaching engaging and effective.

Natalie K.D. Seedan is a sports sciences laboratory technician and part-time lecturer at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus.

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Reflective learning journal: assignment 1.

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Your response can—indeed should—emerge from your own study, our seminar discussion, and your further reflection.

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The Engagement and Participation mark is designed to incentivise engagement with the module in and beyond the seminars. For this element, students should engage weekly with the Perusall assignments on the primary texts and in the seminar discussions. This work will prepare you for the final collection, revision, and submission of the learning journal.

The learning journal you submit will consist of three entries taken from the whole of the module, with at least one coming from weeks 2-6 (the religious traditions) and at least one coming from weeks 8-11 (the philosophical traditions). You can choose your four responses from any of questions that I have posed on Perusall.

Each entry should list the question you are responding to, the key text of the primary document you are discussing, and your response to the question. Your response can—indeed should—emerge from your own study, our seminar discussion, and your further reflection.

The length of your response should be 250 words, though you can go over this limit if you like. Good responses are not necessarily long, but detailed, succinct, and reflective of sustained reflection on the topic. Do not confuse more words for better content. Likewise, feel free to supplement your responses with images, a related piece of music, a poem, or the like that has shaped and informed your reflection. Feel free to be creative here... if you like, not as a necessity.

You should submit one of the reflections you think will be in your final learning journal no later that Monday, 7 November, at 5:00 PM (the Reading Week). These will be read, and formative feedback will be offered before classes start again in Week 8.

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Promoting higher education students’ self-regulated learning through learning analytics: A qualitative study

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• Riina Kleimola   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2091-2798 1 ,
• Laura Hirsto   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8963-3036 2 &
• Heli Ruokamo   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8679-781X 1  

Learning analytics provides a novel means to support the development and growth of students into self-regulated learners, but little is known about student perspectives on its utilization. To address this gap, the present study proposed the following research question: what are the perceptions of higher education students on the utilization of a learning analytics dashboard to promote self-regulated learning? More specifically, this can be expressed via the following threefold sub-question: how do higher education students perceive the use of a learning analytics dashboard and its development as promoting the (1) forethought, (2) performance, and (3) reflection phase processes of self-regulated learning? Data for the study were collected from students ( N  = 16) through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. Results indicated that the students perceived the use of the learning analytics dashboard as an opportunity for versatile learning support, providing them with a means to control and observe their studies and learning, while facilitating various performance phase processes. Insights from the analytics data could also be used in targeting the students’ development areas as well as in reflecting on their studies and learning, both individually and jointly with their educators, thus contributing to the activities of forethought and reflection phases. However, in order for the learning analytics dashboard to serve students more profoundly across myriad studies, its further development was deemed necessary. The findings of this investigation emphasize the need to integrate the use and development of learning analytics into versatile learning processes and mechanisms of comprehensive support and guidance.

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1 Introduction

Promoting students to become autonomous, self-regulated learners is a fundamental goal of education (Lodge et al., 2019 ; Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2001 ). The importance of doing so is particularly highlighted in higher education (HE) contexts that strive to prepare its students for highly demanding and autonomous expert tasks (Virtanen, 2019 ). In order to perform successfully in diverse educational and professional settings, students need to take an active, self-initiated role in managing their learning processes, thereby assuming primary responsibility for their educational pursuits. Self-regulated learning (SRL) invites students to actively monitor, control, and regulate their cognition, motivation, and behavior in relation to their learning goals and contextual conditions (Pintrich, 2000 ). In an effort to create a favorable foundation for the development of SRL, many HE institutions have begun to explore and exploit the potential of emerging educational technologies, such as learning analytics (LA).

Despite the growing interest in adopting LA for educational purposes (Van Leeuwen et al., 2022 ), little is known about students’ perspectives on its utilization (Jivet et al., 2020 ; Wise et al., 2016 ). Additionally, there is only limited evidence on using LA to support SRL (Heikkinen et al., 2022 ; Jivet et al., 2018 ; Matcha et al., 2020 ; Viberg et al., 2020 ). Thus, more research is inevitably needed to better understand how students themselves consider the potential of analytics applications from the perspective of SRL. Involving students in the development of LA is particularly important, as they represent primary stakeholders targeted to benefit from its utilization (Dollinger & Lodge, 2018 ; West et al., 2020 ). LA should not only be developed for users but also with them in order to adapt its potential to their needs and expectations (Dollinger & Lodge, 2018 ; Klein et al., 2019 ).

LA is thought to provide a promising means to enhance student SRL by harnessing the massive amount of data stored in educational systems and facilitating appropriate means of support (Lodge et al., 2019 ). It is generally defined as “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs” (Conole et al., 2011 , para. 4). The reporting of such data is typically conducted through learning analytics dashboards (LADs) that aggregate diverse types of indicators about learners and learning processes in a visualized form (Corrin & De Barba, 2014 ; Park & Jo, 2015 ; Schwendimann et al., 2017 ). Recently, there has been a rapid movement into LADs that present analytics data directly to students themselves (Schwendimann et al., 2017 ; Teasley, 2017 ; Van Leeuwen et al., 2022 ). Such analytics applications generally aim to provide students with insights into their study progress as well as support for optimizing learning outcomes (Molenaar et al., 2019 ; Sclater et al., 2016 ; Susnjak et al., 2022 ).

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how HE students perceive the use and development of an LAD to promote the different phases and processes of SRL. Instead of taking a course-level approach, this study addresses a less-examined study path perspective that covers the entirety of studies, from the start of an HE degree to its completion. A specific emphasis is placed on such an LAD that students could use both independently across studies and together with their tutor teachers as a component of educational guidance. As analytics applications are largely still under development (Sclater et al., 2016 ), and mainly in the exploratory phase (Schwendimann et al., 2017 ; Susnjak et al., 2022 ), it is essential to gain an understanding of how students perceive the use of these applications as a form of learning support. Preparing students to become efficient self-regulated learners is increasingly—and simultaneously—a matter of helping them develop into efficient users of analytics data.

2 Theoretical framework

2.1 enhancing srl in he.

SRL, which has been the subject of wide research interest over the last two decades (Panadero, 2017 ), is referred to as “self-generated thoughts, feelings, and actions that are planned and cyclically adapted to the attainment of personal goals” (Zimmerman, 1999 , p. 14). Self-regulated students are proactive in their endeavors to learn, and they engage in diverse, personally initiated metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral processes to achieve their goals (Zimmerman, 1999 ). They master their learning through covert, cognitive means but also through behavioral, social, and environmental approaches that are reciprocally interdependent and interrelated (Zimmerman, 1999 , 2015 ), thus emphasizing the sociocognitive views on SRL (Bandura, 1986 ).

When describing and modelling SRL, researchers have widely agreed on its cyclical nature and its organization into several distinct phases and processes (Panadero, 2017 ; Puustinen & Pulkkinen, 2001 ). In the well-established model by Zimmerman and Moylan ( 2009 ), SRL occurs in the cyclic phases of forethought, performance, and self-reflection that take place before, during, and after students’ efforts to learn. In the forethought phase, students prepare themselves for learning and approach the learning tasks through the processes of planning and goal setting, and the activation of self-motivation beliefs, such as self-efficacy perceptions, outcome expectations, and personal interests. Next, in the performance phase, they carry out the actual learning tasks and make use of self-control processes and strategies, such as self-instruction, time management, help-seeking, and interest enhancement. Moreover, they keep records of their performance and monitor their learning, while promoting the achievement of desired goals. In the final self-reflection phase, students participate in the processes of evaluating their learning and reflecting on the perceived causes of their successes and failures, which typically results in different types of cognitive and affective self-reactions as responses to such activity. This phase also forms the basis for the approaches to be adjusted for and applied in the subsequent forethought phase, thereby completing the SRL cycle. The model suggests that the processes in each phase influence the following ones in a cyclical and interactive manner and provide feedback for subsequent learning efforts (Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009 ; Zimmerman, 2011 ). Participation in these processes allows students to become self-aware, competent, and decisive in their learning approaches (Kramarski & Michalsky, 2009 ).

Although several other prevalent SRL models with specific emphases also exist (e.g., Pintrich, 2000 ; Winne & Hadwin, 1998 ; for a review, see Panadero, 2017 ), the one presented above provides a comprehensive yet straightforward framework for identifying and examining the key phases and processes related to SRL (Panadero & Alonso-Tapia, 2014 ). Developing thorough insights into the student SRL is especially needed in an HE context, where the increase in digitized educational settings and tools requires students to manage their learning in a way that is autonomous and self-initiated. When pursuing an HE degree, students are expected to engage in the cyclical phases and processes of SRL as a continuous effort throughout their studies. Involvement in SRL is needed not only to successfully perform a single study module, course, or task but also to actively promote the entirety of studies throughout semesters and academic years. It therefore plays a central role in the successful completion of HE studies.

From the study path perspective, the forethought phase requires HE students to be active in the directing and planning of their studies and learning—that is, setting achievable goals, making detailed plans, finding personal interests, and trusting in their abilities to complete the degree. The performance phase, in turn, invites students to participate in the control and observation of their studies and learning. While completing their studies, they must regularly track study performance, visualize relevant study information, create functional study environments, maintain motivation and interest, and seek and receive productive guidance. The reflection phase, on the other hand, involves students in evaluating and reflecting on their studies and learning—that is, analyzing their learning achievements and processing resulting responses. These activities typically occur as overlapping, cyclic, and connected processes and as a continuum across studies. Additionally, the phases may appear simultaneously, as students strive to learn and receive feedback from different processes (Pintrich, 2000 ). The processes may also emerge in more than one phase (Panadero & Alonso-Tapia, 2014 ), and boundaries between the phases are not always that precise.

SRL is shown to benefit HE students in various ways. Research has evidenced, for instance, that online students who use their time efficiently, are aware of their learning behavior, think critically, and show efforts to learn despite challenges are likely to achieve academic success when studying in online settings (Broadbent & Poon, 2015 ). SRL is also shown to contribute to many non-academic outcomes in HE blended environments (for a review, see Anthonysamy et al., 2020 ). Despite this importance, research (e.g., Azevedo et al., 2004 ; Barnard-Brak et al., 2010 ) has indicated that students differ in their ways to self-regulate, and not all are competent self-regulated learners by default. As such, many students would require and benefit from support to develop their SRL (Moos, 2018 ; Wong et al., 2019 ).

Supporting student SRL is generally considered the responsibility of a teaching staff (Callan et al., 2022 ; Kramarski, 2018 ). It can also be a specific task given to tutor teachers assigned to each student or to a group of students for particular academic years. Sometimes referred to as advisors, they are often teachers of study programs who aim to help students in decision-making, study planning, and career reflection (De Laet et al., 2020 ), while offering them guidance and support for the better management of learning. In recent years, efforts have also been made to promote student SRL with educational technologies such as LA (e.g., Marzouk et al., 2016 ; Wise et al., 2016 ). LA is used to deliver insights for students themselves to better self-regulate their learning (e.g., Jivet et al., 2021 ; Molenaar et al., 2019 ), and also to facilitate the interaction between students and guidance personnel (e.g., Charleer et al., 2018 ). It is generally thought to promote the development of future competences needed by students in education and working life (Kleimola & Leppisaari, 2022 ), and to offer novel insights into their motivational drivers (Kleimola et al., 2023 ).

2.2 LA as a potential tool to promote SRL

Much of the recent development in the field of LA has focused on the design and implementation of LADs. In general, their purpose is to support sensemaking and encourage students and teachers to make informed decisions about learning and teaching processes (Jivet et al., 2020 ; Verbert et al., 2020 ). Schwendimann and colleagues ( 2017 ) refer to an LAD as a “display that aggregates different indicators about learner(s), learning process(es) and/or learning context(s) into one or multiple visualizations” (p. 37). Such indicators may provide information, for instance, about student actions and use of learning contents on a learning platform, or the results of one’s learning performance, such as grades (Schwendimann et al., 2017 ). Data can also be extracted from educational institutions’ student information systems to provide students with snapshots of their study progress and access to learning support (Elouazizi, 2014 ). While visualizations enable intuitive and quick interpretations of educational data (Papamitsiou & Economides, 2015 ), they additionally require careful preparation, as not all users may necessarily interpret them uniformly (Aguilar, 2018 ).

LADs can target various stakeholders, and recently there has been a growing interest in their development for students’ personal use (Van Leeuwen et al., 2022 ). Such displays, also known as student-facing dashboards, are thought to increase students’ knowledge of themselves and to assist them in achieving educational goals (Eickholt et al., 2022 ). They are also believed to promote student autonomy by encouraging students to take control of their learning and by supporting their intrinsic motivation to succeed (Bodily & Verbert, 2017 ). However, simply making analytics applications available to students does not guarantee that they will be used productively in terms of learning (Wise, 2014 ; Wise et al., 2016 ). Moreover, they may not necessarily cover or address the relevant aspects of learning (Clow, 2013 ). Thus, to promote the widespread acceptance and adoption of LADs, it is crucial to consider students’ perspectives on their use as a means of learning support (Divjak et al., 2023 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ). If students’ needs are not adequately examined and met, such analytics applications may fail to encourage or even hinder the process of SRL (Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ).

Although previous research on students’ perceptions of LA to enhance their SRL appears to be limited, some studies have addressed such perspectives. Schumacher and Ifenthaler ( 2018 ) found that HE students appreciated LADs that help them plan and initiate their learning activities with supporting elements such as reminders, to-do lists, motivational prompts, learning objectives, and adaptive recommendations, thus promoting the forethought phase of SRL. The students in their study also expected such analytics applications to support the performance phase by providing analyses of their current situation and progress towards goals, materials to meet their individual learning needs, and opportunities for learning exploration and social interaction. To promote the self-reflection phase, the students anticipated LADs to allow for self-assessment, real-time feedback, and future recommendations but were divided as to whether they should receive comparative information about their own or their peers’ performance (Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ). Additionally, the students desired analytics applications to be holistic and advanced, as well as adaptable to individual needs (Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ).

Somewhat similar notions were made by Divjak and colleagues ( 2023 ), who discovered that students welcomed LADs that promote short-term planning and organization of learning but were wary of making comparisons or competing with peers, as they might demotivate learners. Correspondingly, De Barba et al. ( 2022 ) noted that students perceived goal setting and monitoring of progress from a multiple-goals approach as key features in LADs, but they were hesitant to view peer comparisons, as they could promote unproductive competition between students and challenge data privacy. In a similar vein, Rets et al. ( 2021 ) reported that students favored LADs that provide them with study recommendations but did not favor peer comparison unless additional information was included. Roberts et al. ( 2017 ), in turn, stressed that LADs should be customizable by students and offer them some level of control to support their SRL. Silvola et al. ( 2023 ) found that students perceived LADs as supportive for their study planning and monitoring at a study path level but also associated some challenges with them in terms of SRL. Further, Bennett ( 2018 ) found that students’ responses to receiving analytics data varied and were highly individual. There were different views, for instance, on the potential of analytics to motivate students: although it seemed to inspire most students, not all students felt the same way (Bennett, 2018 ; see also Corrin & De Barba, 2014 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ). Moreover, LADs were reported to evoke varying affective responses in students (Bennett, 2018 ; Lim et al., 2021 ).

To promote student SRL, it is imperative that LADs comprehensively address and support all phases of SRL (Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ). However, a systematic literature review conducted by Jivet et al. ( 2017 ) indicated that students were often offered only limited support for goal setting and planning, and comprehensive self-monitoring, as very few of the LADs included in their study enabled the management of self-set learning goals or the tracking of study progress over time. According to Jivet et al. ( 2017 ), this might indicate that most LADs were mainly harnessed to support the reflection and self-evaluation phase of SRL, as the other phases were mostly ignored. Somewhat contradictory results were obtained by Viberg et al. ( 2020 ), whose literature review revealed that most studies aiming to measure or support SRL with LA were primarily focused on the forethought and performance phases and less on the reflection phase. Heikkinen et al. ( 2022 ) discovered that not many of the studies combining analytics-based interventions and SRL processes covered all phases of SRL.

It appears that further development is inevitably required for LADs to better promote student SRL as a whole. Similarly, there is a demand for their tight integration into pedagogical practices and learning processes to encourage their productive use (Wise, 2014 ; Wise et al., 2016 ). One such strategy is to use these analytics applications as a part of guidance activity and as a joint tool for both students and guidance personnel. In the study by Charleer et al. ( 2018 ), the LAD was shown to trigger conversations and to facilitate dialogue between students and study advisors, improve the personalization of guidance, and provide insights into factual data for further interpretation and reflection. However, offering students access to an LAD only during the guidance meeting may not be sufficient to meet their requirements for the entire duration of their studies. For instance, Charleer and colleagues ( 2018 ) found that the students were also interested in using the LAD independently, outside of the guidance context. Also, it seems that encouraging students to actively advance their studies with such analytics applications necessitates a student-centered approach and holistic development through research. According to Rets et al. ( 2021 ), there is a particular call for qualitative insights, as many previous LAD studies that included students have primarily used quantitative approaches (e.g., Beheshitha et al., 2016 ; Divjak et al., 2023 ; Kim et al., 2016 ).

2.3 Research questions

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how HE students perceive the utilization of an LAD in SRL. A specific emphasis was placed on its utilization as part of the forethought, performance, and reflection phase processes, considered central to student SRL. The main research question (RQ) and the threefold sub-question are as follows:

RQ: What are the perceptions of HE students on the utilization of an LAD to promote SRL?

How do HE students perceive the use of an LAD and its development as promoting the (1) forethought, (2) performance, and (3) reflection phase processes of SRL?

3.1 Context

The study was conducted in a university of applied sciences (UAS) in Finland that had launched an initial version of an LAD to be piloted together with its students and tutor teachers as a part of the guidance process. The LAD was descriptive in nature and consisted of commonly available analytics data and simple analytics indicators showing an individual student’s study progress and success in a study path. As is typical for descriptive analytics, it offered insights to better understand the past and present (Costas-Jauregui et al., 2021 ) while informing the future action (Van Leeuwen et al., 2022 ). The data were extracted from the UAS’ student information system and presented using Microsoft Power BI tools. No predictive or comparative information was included. The main display of the LAD consisted of three data visualizations and an information bar (see Fig.  1 , a–d), all presented originally in Finnish. Each visualization could also be expanded into a single display for more accurate viewing.

An example of the main display of the piloted LAD with data visualizations ( a – c ) and an information bar ( d )

First, the LAD included a data visualization that illustrated a student’s study progress and success per semester using a line chart (Fig.  1 , a). It displayed the scales for total number of credit points (left) and grade point averages (right) for courses completed on a semester timeline. Data points on the chart displayed an individual student’s study performance with respect to these indicators in each semester and were connected to each other with a line. Pointing to one of these data points also opened a data box that indicated the student name and information about courses (course name, scope, grade, assessment date) from which the credit points and grade point averages were obtained.

Second, the LAD contained another type of line chart that indicated a student’s individual study progress over time in more detail (Fig.  1 , b). The chart displayed a timeline with three-month periods and illustrated a scale for the accumulated credit points. Data points on the chart indicated the accumulated number of credit points obtained from the courses and appeared in blue if the student had passed the course(s) and in red if the student had failed the course(s) at that time. As with the line chart above it, the data points in this chart also provided more detailed information about the courses behind the credit points and were intertwined with a line.

Third, the LAD offered information related to a student’s study success through a radar chart (Fig.  1 , c). The chart represented the courses taken by the student and displayed a scale for the grades received from them. The lowest grade was placed in the center of the chart and the highest one on its outer circle. The grades in between were scaled on the chart accordingly, and the courses performed with a similar grade were displayed close to each other. Data points on the chart represented the grades obtained from numerically evaluated courses and were merged with a line. Each data point also had a data box with the course name and the grade obtained.

Fourth, the LAD included an information bar (Fig.  1 , d) that displayed the student number and the student name (removed from the figure), the total number of accumulated credit points, the grade point average for passed courses, and the amount of credit points obtained from practical training.

The LAD was piloted in authentic guidance meetings in which a tutor teacher and a student discussed topical issues related to the completion of studies. Such meetings were a part of the UAS’ standard guidance discussions that were typically held 1–2 times during the academic year, or more often if needed. In the studied meetings, the students and tutor teachers collectively reviewed the LAD to support the discussion. Only the tutor teachers were commonly able to access the LAD, as it was still under development and in the pilot phase. However, the students could examine its use as presented by the tutor teacher. In addition to the LAD, the meeting focused on reviewing the student’s personal study plan, which contained information about their studies to be completed and could be viewed through the student information system. Most of the meetings were organized online, and their duration varied according to an individual student’s needs. A researcher (first author) attended the meetings as an observer.

3.2 Participants and procedures

Participants were HE students ( N  = 16) pursuing a bachelor’s degree at the Finnish University of Applied Sciences (UAS), ranging from 21 to 49 years of age (mean = 30.38, median = 29.5); 11 (68.75%) were female, and 5 (31.25%) were male. HE studies commenced between 2016 and 2020, and comprised different academic fields, including business administration, culture, engineering, humanities and education, and social services and health care. Depending on the degree, study scope ranged from 210 to 240 ECTS credit points, which take approximately three and a half to four years to complete. However, the students could also proceed at a faster or slower pace under certain conditions. The students were selected to represent different study fields and study stages, and to have studied for more than one academic year. Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from all students, and their participation was voluntary. The research design was approved by the respective UAS.

Data for this qualitative study was collected through semi-structured, individual student interviews conducted in April–September 2022. To address certain topics in each interview, an interview guide was used. The interview questions incorporated into the guide were tested in two student test interviews to simulate a real interview situation and to assure intelligibility, as also suggested by Chenail ( 2011 ). Findings indicated that the questions were largely usable, functional, and understandable, but some had to be slightly refined to ensure their conciseness and to improve clarity and familiarity of expressions vis-à-vis the target group. Also, the order of questions was partly reshaped to support the flow of discussion.

In the interviews, the students were asked to provide information about their demographic and educational backgrounds as well as their overall opinions of educational practices and the use of LA. In particular, they were invited to share their views on the use of the piloted LAD and its development as promoting different phases and processes of SRL. Students’ perceptions were generally based on the assumption that they could use the LAD both independently during their studies and collectively with their tutor teachers as a component of the guidance process.

Interviews were conducted immediately or shortly after the guidance meeting. Interview duration ranged from 42 to 70 min. The graphical presentation of the LAD was commonly shown to the students to provide stimuli and evoke discussion, as suggested by Kwasnicka et al. ( 2015 ). The interviews were conducted by the same researcher (first author) who observed the guidance meetings. They were primarily held online, and only one was organized face-to-face. All interviews were video recorded for subsequent analysis.

3.3 Data analysis

Interview recordings were transcribed verbatim, accumulating a total of 187 pages of textual material for analysis (Times New Roman, 12-point font, line spacing 1). A qualitative content analysis method was used to analyze the data (see Mayring, 2000 ; Schreier, 2014 ) to enhance in-depth understanding of the research phenomenon and to inform practical actions (Krippendorf, 2019 ). Also, data were approached both deductively and inductively (see Elo & Kyngäs, 2008 ; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016 ), and the analysis was supported using the ATLAS.ti program.

Analysis began with a thorough familiarization with the data in order to develop a general understanding of the students’ perspectives. First, the data were deductively coded using Zimmerman and Moylan’s ( 2009 ) SRL model as a theoretical guide for analysis and as applied to the study path perspective. All relevant units of analysis—such as paragraphs, sentences, or phrases that addressed the use of the LAD or its development in relation to the processes of SRL presented in the model—were initially identified from the data, and then sorted into meaningful units with specific codes. The focus was placed on instances in the data that were applicable and similar to the processes represented in the model, but the analysis was not limited to those that fully corresponded to them. The preliminary analysis involved several rounds of coding that ultimately led to the formation of main categories, grouped into the phases of SRL. The forethought phase consisted of processes that emphasized the planning and directing of studies and learning with the LAD. The performance phase, in turn, involved processes that addressed the control and observation of studies and learning through the LAD. Finally, the reflection phase included processes that focused on evaluating and reflecting on studies and learning with the LAD.

Second, the data were approached inductively by examining the use of the LAD and its development as distinct aspects within each phase and process of SRL (i.e., the main categories). The aim was, on the one hand, to identify how the use of the LAD was considered to serve the students in the phases and processes of SRL in its current form, and on the other hand, how it should be improved to better support them. The analysis not only focused on the characteristics of the LAD but also on the practices that surrounded its use and development. The units of analysis were first condensed from the data and then organized into subcategories for similar units. As suggested by Schreier ( 2014 ), the process was continued until a saturation point was reached—that is, no additional categories could be found. As a result, subcategories for all of the main categories were identified.

Following Schreier’s ( 2014 ) recommendation, the categories were named and described with specific data examples. Additionally, some guidelines were added to highlight differences between categories and to avoid overlap. Using parts of this categorization framework as a coding scheme, a portion of the data (120 text segments) was independently coded into the main categories by the first and second authors. The results were then compared, and all disagreements were resolved through negotiation until a shared consensus was reached. After minor changes were made to the coding scheme, the first author recoded all data. The number of students who had provided responses to each subcategory was counted and added to provide details on the study. For study integrity, the results are supported by data examples with the students’ aliases and the study fields they represented. The quotations were translated from Finnish to English.

The results are reported by first answering the threefold sub-question, that is, how do HE students perceive the use of an LAD and its development as promoting the (1) forethought, (2) performance, and (3) reflection phase processes of SRL. The subsequent results are then summarized to address the main RQ, that is, what are the main findings on HE students’ perceptions on the utilization of an LAD to promote SRL.

4.1 LAD as a part of the forethought phase processes

The students perceived the use of the LAD and its development as related to the forethought phase processes of SRL through the categorization presented in Table  1 below.

Regarding the process of goal setting , almost all students ( n  = 15) emphasized that the use of the LAD promoted the targeting of goal-oriented study completion and competence development. Analytics indicators—such as grades, grade point averages, and accumulated credit points—adequately informed the students of areas they should aim for, further improve, or put more effort into. Only one student ( n  = 1) considered the analytics data too general for establishing goals. However, some students ( n  = 7) specifically mentioned their desire to set and enter individual goals in the LAD. The students were considered to have individual intentions, which should also be made visible in the LAD:

For example, someone might complete [their studies] in four years, someone might do [them] even faster, so maybe in a way that there is the possibility…to set…that, well, I want or my goal is to graduate in this time, and then it would kind of show in it. (Sophia, Humanities and Education student)

Moreover, some students ( n  = 6) wanted to obtain information on the degree program’s overall target times, study requirements, or pace recommendations through the LAD.

In relation to the process of study planning , the use of the LAD provided many students ( n  = 8) grounds to plan and structure the promotion and completion of their studies, such as which courses and types of studies to choose, and what kind of study pace and schedule to follow. However, an even greater set of students ( n  = 12) hoped that the LAD could provide them with more sophisticated tools for planning. For instance, it could inform them about studies to be completed, analyze their study performance in detail, or make predictions for the future. Moreover, it should offer them opportunities to choose courses, make enrollments, set schedules, get reminders, and take notes. One example of such an advanced analytics application was described as follows: ‟It would be a bit like a conversational tool with the student as well, that you would first put…your studies in the program, so it would [then] remind you regularly that hey, do this” (James, Humanities and Education student).

When discussing the use of the LAD, most students ( n  = 12) emphasized the critical role of personal interests and preferences , which was found to not only guide studying and learning in general but to also drive and shape the utilization of the LAD. According to the students, using such an analytics application could particularly benefit those students who, for instance, prefer monitoring of study performance, perceive information in a visualized form, are interested in analytics or themselves, or find it relevant for their studies. Prior familiarization was also considered useful: ‟Of course, there are those who use this kind of thing more and those who use this kind of thing in daily life, so they could especially benefit from this, probably more than I do” (Olivia, Social Services and Health Care student). Even though the LAD was considered to offer pertinent insights for many types of learners, it might not be suitable for all. For instance, it could be challenging for some students to comprehend analytics data or to make effective use of them in their studies. In the development of the LAD, such personal aspects should be noted. The students ( n  = 7) believed the LAD might better adapt to students’ individual needs if it allows them to customize its features and displays or to use it voluntarily based on one’s personal interests and needs.

When describing the use of LAD, half of the students ( n  = 8) discussed its connections with self-efficacy . Making use of analytics data appeared to strengthen the students’ beliefs in their abilities to study and learn in a targeted manner, even if their own feelings suggested otherwise. As one of the students stated:

It’s nice to see that progress, that it has happened although it feels that it hasn’t. So, you can probably set goals based on [an idea] that you’re likely to progress, you could set [them] that you could graduate sometime. (Emma, Engineering student)

On the other hand, the use of the LAD also seemed to require students to have sufficient self-efficacy. It was perceived as vital especially when the analytics data showed unfavorable study performance, such as failed or incomplete courses, or gaps in the study performance with respect to peers. One student ( n  = 1) suggested that the LAD could include praises as evidence of and support for appropriate study performance. Such incentives may help improve the students’ self-confidence as learners. Apart from this, however, the students had no other recommendations for developing the use of the LAD to support self-efficacy.

4.2 LAD as a part of the performance phase processes

The students discussed the use of the LAD and its development in relation to the performance phase processes of SRL according to the categories described in Table  2 below.

The students ( n  = 16) widely agreed that using the LAD benefited them in the process of metacognitive monitoring. By indicating the progress and success of study performance, the LAD was thought to be well suited for observing the course of studies and the development of competences. Moreover, it helped the students to gain awareness of their individual strengths and weaknesses, as well as successes and failures, in a study path. Tracking individual study performance was also found to contribute to purposeful study completion, as the following data example demonstrates:

It’s important especially when there is a target time to graduate, so of course you must follow and stay on track in many ways as there are many such pitfalls to easily fall into, [and] as I’ve fallen quite many times, it’s good [to monitor]. (Sarah, Culture student)

Additionally, the insights of monitoring could be used in future job searches to provide information about acquired competences to potential employers. The successful promotion of studies was generally perceived to require regular monitoring by both students and their educators. However, one of the students considered it a particular responsibility of the students themselves, as the studies were completed at an HE level and were thus voluntary for them. To provide more in-depth insights, many students ( n  = 12) recommended the incorporation of a course-level monitoring opportunity in the LAD. More detailed information was needed, for instance, about course descriptions, assignments completed, and grades received. The rest of the students ( n  = 4), however, wanted to keep the course-level monitoring within the learning management system. One of them stated that it could also be a place through which the students could use the LAD. Some students ( n  = 6) emphasized the need to reconsider current assessment practices to enable better tracking of study performance. Specifically, assessments could be made in greater detail and grades given immediately after course completion. The variation in scales and time points of assessments between the courses and degree programs posed potential challenges for monitoring, thus prompting the need to unify educational practices at the organizational level.

As an activity closely related to metacognitive monitoring, the process of imaging and visualizing was emphasized by the students as helping them to advance in their educational pursuits. Most students ( n  = 15) mentioned that using the LAD allowed them to easily image their study path and clarify their study situation. As one of them stated, ‟This is quite clear, this like, that you can see the overall situation with a quick glance” (Anna, Business Administration student). The visualizations were perceived as informative, tangible, and understandable. However, they were also thought to carry the risk of students neglecting some other relevant aspects of studying and learning in the course of attracting such focused attention. Although the visualizations were generally considered clear, some students ( n  = 11) noted that they could be further improved to better organize the analytics data. For instance, the students suggested the attractive use of colors and the categorization of different types of courses. Visual symbols, in turn, may be particularly effective in course-level data. Technical aspects should also be carefully considered to avoid false visualizations.

Regarding the process of environmental structuring , the LAD appeared to be a welcome addition to the study toolkit and overall study environment. A few students ( n  = 4) considered it appropriate to utilize the LAD as a separate PowerBI application alongside other (Microsoft O365) study tools, but they also felt that it could be utilized through other systems if necessary. However, one student ( n  = 1) raised the need for overall system integrations and some students ( n  = 8) expressed a specific wish to use the LAD as an integrated part of the student information system that was thought to improve its accessibility. A few students ( n  = 6) also wanted to receive some additional analytics data as related to the information stored in such a system. For instance, the students could be informed about their study progress or offered feedback on their overall performance in relation to the personal study plan. Other students ( n  = 10), in turn, did not consider the need for this or did not mention it. It was generally emphasized that the LAD should remain sufficiently clear and simple, as too much information can make its use ineffective:

I think there is just enough information in this. Of course, if you would want to add something small, you could, but I don’t know how much, because I feel that when there is too much information, so it’s a bit like you can’t get as much out of it as you could get. (Olivia, Social Services and Health Care student)

Moreover, the analytics data must be kept private and protected. The students generally desired personal access to the LAD; if given such an opportunity, almost all ( n  = 15) believed they would utilize it in the future, and only one ( n  = 1) was unsure about this prospect. The analytics data were believed to be of particular use when studies were actively promoted. Hence they should be made available to the students from the start of their studies.

Regarding the process of interest and motivation enhancement , all students ( n  = 16) mentioned that using the LAD stimulated their interest or enhanced their motivation, although to varying degrees. For some students, a general tracking of studies was enough to encourage them to continue their pursuits, while others were particularly inspired by seeing either high or low study performance. The development of motivation and interest was generally thought to be a hindrance if the students perceived the analytics data as unfavorable or lacking essential information. As one of students mentioned, ‟If your [chart] line was downward, and if there were only ones and zeros or something like that, it could in a way decrease the motivation” (Helen, Humanities and Education student). It appeared that enhancing interest and motivation was mainly dependent on the students’ own efforts to succeed in their course of study and thus to generate favorable analytics data. However, some students ( n  = 7) felt that it could be additionally enhanced by diversifying and improving the analytics tools in the LAD. For example, the opportunities for more detailed analyses and future study planning or comparisons of study performance with that of peers might further increase these students’ motivation and interest in their studies. Even so, it was also considered possible that especially comparisons between students might have the opposite, demotivating and discouraging effect.

All students ( n  = 16) mentioned that using the LAD facilitated the process of seeking and accessing help . It enabled the identification of potential support needs—for instance, if several courses were failed or left unfinished. As noted, they were perceived as alarming signals for the students themselves to seek help and for the guidance personnel to provide targeted support. As one of the students emphasized, it was important that not only ‟a teacher [tutor] gets interested in looking at what the situation is but also that a student would understand to communicate regarding the promotion of studies and situations” (Emily, Social Services and Health Care student). Some students ( n  = 9) suggested that the students, tutor teachers, or both could receive automated alerts if concerns were to arise. On the other hand, the impact of such automated notifications on changing the course of study was considered somewhat questionable. Above all, the students ( n  = 16) preferred human contact and personal support by the guidance personnel, who would use a sensitive approach to address possibly delicate issues. Support would be important to include in existing practices, as the tutor teachers should not be overburdened. One of the students also stated that the automated alerts could be sufficient if they just worked effectively.

4.3 LAD as a part of the reflection phase and processes

The students addressed the use of the LAD and its development as a part of the reflection phase processes of SRL through categories outlined in Table  3 .

The students widely appreciated the support provided by the use of the LAD for the process of evaluation and reflection. The majority ( n  = 15) mentioned that it allowed them to individually reflect on the underlying aspects of their study performance, such as what kind of learners they are, what type of teaching or learning methods suit them, and what factors impact their learning. Similarly, the students ( n  = 16) valued the possibility of examining the analytics data together with the guidance personnel, such as tutor teachers, and commonly expressed a desire to revisit the LAD in future guidance meetings. It was thought to promote the interpretation of analytics data and to facilitate collective reflection on the reasons behind one’s study success or failure. However, this might require a certain orientation from the guidance personnel, as the student describes below:

I feel that it’s possible to address such themes that what may perhaps cause this. Of course, a lot depends on how amenable the teacher [tutor] is, like are we focusing on how the studies are going but in a way, not so much on what may cause it. (Sophia, Humanities and Education student)

Some students ( n  = 8) proposed incorporating familiarization with analytics insights into course implementations of the degree programs. Additionally, many students ( n  = 11) expressed a desire to examine the student group’s general progress in tutoring classes together with the tutor teacher and peers, particularly if the results were properly targeted and anonymized, and presented in a discreet manner. However, some students ( n  = 5) found this irrelevant. The students were generally wary to evaluate and compare an individual student’s study performance in relation to the peer average through the LAD. While some students ( n  = 4) welcomed such an opportunity, others ( n  = 6) considered it unnecessary. A few students ( n  = 5) emphasized that such comparisons between students should be optional and visible if desired, and one student ( n  = 1) did not have a definite view about it. Rather than competing with others, the students stressed the importance of challenging themselves and evaluating study performance against their own goals or previous achievements.

According to the students ( n  = 16), the use of the LAD was associated with a wide range of affective reactions . Positive responses such as joy, relief, and satisfaction were considered to emerge if the analytics data displayed by the LAD was perceived as favorable and expected, and supportive of future learning. Similarly, negative responses such as anxiety, pressure, or stress were likely to occur if such data indicated poor performance, thus challenging the learning process. On the other hand, such self-reactions could also appear as neutral or indifferent, depending on the student and the situation. Individual responses were related not only to the current version of the LAD but also to its further development targets. Some students ( n  = 3) pointed out the importance of guidance and support, through which the affective reactions could be processed together with professionals. As one of the students underlined, it is important “that there is also that support for the studies, that it isn’t just like you have this chart, and it looks bad, that try to manage. Perhaps there is that support, support in a significant role as well” (Sophia, Humanities and Education student). It seemed critical that the students were not left alone with the LAD but rather were given assistance to deal with the various responses its use may elicit.

4.4 Summary of findings on LAD utilization to promote SRL among HE students

In summary, HE students’ perceptions on the utilization of an LAD to promote SRL phases and processes were largely congruent, but nonetheless partly varied. In particular, the students agreed on the support provided by the LAD during the performance phase and for the purpose of metacognitive monitoring. Such activity was thought to not only enable the students to observe their studies and learning, but to also create the basis for the emergence of all other processes, which were facilitated by the monitoring. That is, while the students familiarized themselves with the course of their studies via the analytics data, they could further apply these insights—for instance, to visualize study situations, enhance motivation, and identify possible support needs. Monitoring with the LAD was also perceived to partly promote the students to the forethought and reflection phases and processes by giving them grounds to target their development areas as well as to reflect on their studies and learning individually and jointly with their tutor teachers. However, it was clear that less emphasis was placed on using the LAD for study planning, addressing individual interests, activating self-efficacy, and supporting environmental structuring, thus giving incentives for their further investigation and future improvement.

Although the LAD used in this study seemed to serve many functions as such, its holistic development was deemed necessary for more thorough SRL support. In particular, the students agreed on the need to improve such an analytics application to further strengthen the performance phase processes—particularly monitoring—by, for instance, developing it for the students’ independent use, and by integrating it with instructional and guidance practices provided by their educators. Moreover, the students commonly wished for more advanced analytics tools that could more directly contribute to the planning of studies and joint reflection of group-level analytics data. To better support the various processes of SRL, new features were generally welcomed into the LAD, although the students’ views and emphases on them also varied. Mixed perspectives were related, for instance, to the need to enrich data or compare students within the LAD. Thus, it seemed important to develop the LAD to conform to the preferences of its users. Along with improving the LAD, students also paid attention to the development of pedagogical practices and guidance processes that together could create appropriate conditions for the emergence of SRL.

5 Discussion

The purpose of this study was to gain insights into HE students’ perceptions on the utilization of an LAD to promote their SRL. The investigation extended the previous research by offering in-depth descriptions of the specific phases and processes of SRL associated with the use of an LAD and its development targets. By applying a study path perspective, it also provided novel insights into how to promote students to become self-regulated learners and effective users of analytics data as an integral part of their studies in HE.

The students’ perspectives on the use of LAD and its development were initially explored as a part of the forethought phase processes of SRL, with a particular focus on the planning and directing of studies and learning. In line with previous research (e.g., Divjak et al., 2023 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ; Silvola et al., 2023 ), the students in this study appreciated an analytics application that helped them prepare for their future learning endeavors—that is, the initial phase of the SRL cycle (see Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009 ). Using the LAD specifically allowed the students to recognize their development areas and offered a basis to organize their future coursework. However, improvements to allow students to set individual goals and make plans directly within the LAD, as well as to increase awareness of general degree goals, were also desired. These seem to be pertinent avenues for development, as goals may inspire the students not only to invest greater efforts in learning but also to track their achievements against these goals (Wise, 2014 ; Wise et al., 2016 ). While education is typically entered with individual starting points, it is important to allow the students to set personal targets and routes for their learning (Wise, 2014 ; Wise et al., 2016 ).

The results of this study indicate that the use of LADs is primarily driven and shaped by students’ personal interests and preferences, which commonly play a crucial role in the development of SRL (see Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009 ; Panadero & Alonso-Tapia, 2014 ). It might particularly benefit those students for whom analytics-related activities are characteristic and of interest, and who consider them personally meaningful for their studies. It has been argued that if students consider analytics applications serve their learning, they are also willing to use them (Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ; Wise et al., 2016 ). On the other hand, it has also been stated that not all students are necessarily able to maximize its possible benefits on their own and might need support in understanding its purpose (Wise, 2014 ) and in finding personal relevance for its use. The findings of this study suggest that a more individual fit of LADs could be promoted by allowing students to customize its functionalities and displays. Comparable results have also been obtained from other studies (e.g., Bennett, 2018 ; Rets et al., 2021 ; Roberts et al., 2017 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ), thus highlighting the need to develop customized LADs that better meet the needs of diverse students and that empower them to control their analytics data. More attention may also be needed to promote the use and development of LADs to support self-efficacy, as it appeared to be an unrecognized potential still for many students in this study. According to Rets et al. ( 2021 ), using LADs for such a purpose might particularly benefit online learners and part-time students, who often face various requirements and thus may forget the efforts put into learning and giving themselves enough credit. By facilitating students’ self-confidence, it could also promote the necessary changes in study behavior, at least for those students with low self-efficacy (Rets et al., 2021 ).

Second, the students’ views on the use of the LAD and its development were investigated in terms of the performance phase processes of SRL, with an emphasis on the control and observation of studies and learning. In line with the results of other studies (De Barba et al., 2022 ; Rets et al., 2021 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ; Silvola et al., 2023 ), the students preferred using the LAD to monitor their study performance—they wanted to follow their progress and success over time and keep themselves and their educators up to date. According to Jivet et al. ( 2017 ), such functionality directly promotes the performance phase of SRL. Moreover, it seemed to serve as a basis for other activities under SRL, all of which were heavily dependent and built on the monitoring. The results of this study, however, imply that monitoring opportunities should be further expanded to provide even more detailed insights. Moreover, they indicate the need to develop and refine pedagogical practices at the organizational level in order to better serve student monitoring. As monitoring plays a crucial role in SRL (Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009 ), it is essential to examine how it is related to other SRL processes and how it can be effectively promoted with analytics applications (Viberg et al., 2020 ).

In this study, the students used the LAD not only to monitor but also to image and visualize their learning. In accordance with the views of Papamitsiou and Economides ( 2015 ), the visualizations transformed the analytics data into an easily interpretable visual form. The visualizations were not considered to generate information overload, although such a concern has sometimes been associated with the use of LADs (e.g., Susnjak et al., 2022 ). However, the students widely preferred even more descriptive and nuanced illustrations to clarify and structure the analytics data. At the same time, care must be taken to ensure that the visualizations do not divert too much attention from other relevant aspects of learning, as was also found important in prior research (e.g., Charleer et al., 2018 ; Wise, 2014 ). It seems critical that an LAD inform but not overwhelm its users (Susnjak et al., 2022 ). As argued by Klein et al. ( 2019 ), confusing visualizations may not only generate mistrust but also lead to their complete nonuse.

Although the LAD piloted in the study was considered to be a relatively functional application, it could be even more accessible and usable if it was incorporated into the student information system and enriched with the data from it. Even then, however, the LAD should remain simple to use and its data privacy ensured. It has been argued that more information is not always better (Aguilar, 2018 ), and the analytics indicators must be carefully considered to truly optimize learning (Clow, 2013 ). While developing their SRL, students would particularly benefit from a well-structured environment with fewer distractions and more facilitators for learning (Panadero & Alonso-Tapia, 2014 ). The smooth promotion of studies also seems to require personal access to the analytics data. Similar to the learners in Charleer and colleagues’ ( 2018 ) study, the students in this study desired to take advantage of the LAD autonomously, beyond the guidance context. It was believed to be especially used when they were actively promoting their studies. This is seen as a somewhat expected finding given the significant role of study performance indicators in the LAD. However, the question is also raised as to whether such an analytics application would be used mainly by those students who progress diligently but would be ignored by those who advance only a little or not at all. Ideally, the LAD would serve students in different situations and at various stages of studies.

Using the LAD offered the students a promising means to enhance motivation and interest in their studies through the monitoring of analytics data. However, not all students were inspired in the same manner or similar analytics data displayed by the LAD. Although the LAD was seen as inspiring and interesting in many ways, it also had the potential to demotivate or even discourage. This finding corroborates the results of other studies reporting mixed results on the power of LADs to motivate students (e.g., Bennett, 2018 ; Corrin & de Barba, 2014 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ). As such, it would be essential that the analytics applications consider and address students with different performance levels and motivational factors (Jivet et al., 2017 ). Based on the results of this study, diversifying the tools included in the LAD might also be necessary. On the other hand, the enhancement of motivation was also found to be the responsibility of the students themselves—that is, if the students wish the analytics application to display favorable analytics data and thus motivate them, they must first display concomitant effort in their studies.

The use of the LAD provided a convenient way to intervene if the students’ study performance did not meet expectations. With the LAD, both the students and their tutor teachers could detect signs of possible support needs and address them with guidance. In the future, such needs could also be reported through automated alerts. Overall, however, the students in this study preferred human contact and personal support over automated interventions, contrary to the findings obtained by Roberts and colleagues ( 2017 ). Being identified to their educators did not seem to be a particular concern for them, although it has been found to worry students in other contexts (e.g., Roberts et al., 2017 ). Rather, the students felt they would benefit more from personal support that was specifically targeted to them and sensitive in its approach. The students generally demanded delicate, ethical consideration when acting upon analytics data and in the provision of support, which was also found to be important in prior research (e.g., Kleimola & Leppisaari, 2022 ). Additionally, Wise and colleagues ( 2016 ) underlined the need to foster student agency and to prevent students from becoming overly reliant on analytics-based interventions: if all of the students’ mistakes are pointed out to them, they may no longer learn to recognize mistakes on their own. Therefore, to support SRL, it is essential to know when to intervene and when to let students solve challenges independently (Kramarski & Michalsky, 2009 ).

Lastly, the students’ perceptions on the use and development of the LAD were examined from the perspective of the reflection phase processes of SRL, with particular attention given to evaluation and reflection on studies and learning. The use of the LAD provided the students with a basis to individually reflect on the potential causes behind their study performance, for better or worse. Moreover, they could address such issues together with guidance personnel and thus make better sense of the analytics data. Corresponding to the results of Charleer et al.’s ( 2018 ) study, collective reflection on analytical data provided the students with new insights and supported their understanding. Engaging in such reflective practices offered the students the opportunity to complete the SRL cycle and draw the necessary conclusions regarding their performance for subsequent actions (see Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009 ). In the future, analytics-based reflection could also be implemented in joint tutoring classes and courses included in the degree programs. This would likely promote the integration of LADs into the activity flow of educational environments, as recommended by Wise and colleagues ( 2016 ). In sum, using LADs should be a regular part of pedagogical practices and learning processes (Wise et al., 2016 ).

When evaluating and reflecting on their studies and learning, the students preferred to focus on themselves and their own development as learners. Similar to earlier findings (e.g., Divjak et al., 2023 ; Rets et al., 2021 ; Roberts et al., 2017 ; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018 ), the students felt differently about the need to develop LADs to compare their study performance with that of other students. Although this function could help some of the students to position themselves in relation to their peers, others thought it should be optional or completely avoided. In agreement with the findings of Divjak et al. ( 2023 ), it seemed that the students wanted to avoid mutual competition comparisons; however, it might not be harmful for everyone and in every case. Consequently, care is required when considering the kind of features in the LAD that offer real value to students in a particular context (Divjak et al., 2023 ). Rather than limiting the point of reference only to peers, it might be useful to also offer students other targets for comparative activity, such as individual students’ previous progress or goals set for the activity (Wise, 2014 ; Wise et al., 2016 ; see also Bandura, 1986 ). In addition, it is important that students not be left alone to face and cope with the various reactions that may be elicited by such evaluation and reflection with analytics data (Kleimola & Leppisaari, 2022 ). As the results of this study and those of others (e.g., Bennett, 2018 ; Lim et al., 2021 ) generally indicate, affective responses evoked by LADs may vary and are not always exclusively positive. Providing a safe environment for students to reflect on successes and failures and to process the resulting responses might not only encourage necessary changes in future studies but also promote the use of an LAD as a learning support.

In summary, the results of this study imply that making an effective use of an analytics application—even with a limited amount of analytics data and functionality available—may facilitate the growth of students into self-regulated learners. That is, even if the LAD principally addresses some particular phase or process of SRL, it can act as a catalyst to encourage students in the development of SRL on a wider scale. This finding also emphasizes the interdependent and interactive nature of SRL (see Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009 ) that similarly seems to characterize the use of an LAD. However, the potential of LADs to promote SRL may be lost unless students themselves are (pro)active in initiating and engaging with such activity or receive appropriate pedagogical support for it. There appears to be a specific need for guidance that is sensitive to the students’ affective reactions and would help students learn and develop with analytics data. Providing the students with adequate support is particularly critical if their studies have not progressed favorably or as planned. It seems important that the LAD would not only target those students who are already self-regulated learners but, with appropriate support and guidance, would also serve those students who are gradually growing in that direction.

5.1 Limitations and further research

This study has some limitations. First, it involved a relatively small number of HE students who were examined in a pilot setting. Although the sample was sufficient to provide in-depth insights and the saturation point was reached, it might be useful in further research to use quantitative approaches and diverse groups of students to improve the generalizability of results to a larger student population. Also, addressing the perspectives of guidance personnel, specifically tutor teachers, could provide additional insights into the use and development of LADs to promote SRL.

Second, the LAD piloted and investigated in this study was not yet widely in use or accessible by the students. Moreover, it was examined for a relatively brief time, so the students’ perceptions were shaped not only by their experiences but also by their expectations of its potential. Future research on students and tutor teachers with more extensive user experience could build an even more profound picture of the possibilities and limitations of the LAD from a study path perspective. Such investigation might also benefit from trace data collected from the students’ and tutor teachers’ interactions with the LAD. It would be valuable to examine how the students and tutor teachers make use of the LAD in the long term and how it is integrated into learning activities and pedagogical practices.

Third, due to the emphasis on an HE institution and the analytics application used in this specific context, the transferability of results may be limited. However, the results of this study offer many important and applicable perspectives to consider in various educational environments where LADs are implemented and aimed at supporting students across their studies.

6 Conclusions

The results of this study offer useful insights for the creation of LADs that are closely related to the theoretical aspects of learning and that meet the particular needs of their users. In particular, the study increases the understanding of how such analytics applications should be connected to the entirety of studies—that is, what kind of learning processes and pedagogical support are needed alongside them to best serve students in their learning. Consequently, it encourages a comprehensive consideration and promotion of pedagogy, educational technology, and related practices in HE. The role of LA in supporting learning and guidance seems significant, so investments must be made in its appropriate use and development. In particular, the voice of the students must be listened to, as it promotes their commitment to the joint development process and fosters the productive use of analytics applications in learning. At its best, LA becomes an integral part of HE settings, one that helps students to complete their studies and contributes to their development into self-regulated learners.

Data availability

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Higher education

• Learning analytics
• Learning analytics dashboard

Research question

• Self-regulated learning

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Language process: In the preparation process of the manuscript, the Quillbot Paraphraser tool was used to improve language clarity in some parts of the text (e.g., word choice). The manuscript was also proofread by a professional. After using this tool and service, the authors reviewed and revised the text as necessary, taking full responsibility for the content of this manuscript.

The authors also thank the communications and information technology specialists of the UAS under study for their support in editing Fig. 1 for publication.

This research was partly funded by Business Finland through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) project “Utilization of learning analytics in the various educational levels for supporting self-regulated learning (OAHOT)” (Grant no. 5145/31/2019). The article was completed with grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Central Ostrobothnia Regional Fund (Grant no. 25221232) and The Emil Aaltonen Foundation (Grant no. 230078), which were awarded to the first author.

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Kleimola, R., Hirsto, L. & Ruokamo, H. Promoting higher education students’ self-regulated learning through learning analytics: A qualitative study. Educ Inf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12978-4

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