Effect of a training curriculum on Developing Students’ Reflective Writing Ability in
Institute of Physical Education Udonthani Campus
Wiyada Wannakhan
Institute of Physical Education Udonthani Campus (Thailand)
ABSTRACT
This research was purposed to create a training curriculum to develop reflective writing
ability of students and to study the effect of the curriculum on learning achievement of the students.
There were three phases in this research. Phase 1: including the contextual study of current situation
and problem of reflective writing, the level of reflective thinking and the need assessment of
training reflective writing, constructing the curriculum, checking the validity by a group of 3
experts,5 teachers and 105 students in Institute of Physical Education UdonThani Campus were
administered by using survey research. The data collection was analyzed of both qualitatively and
quantitatively. Phase 2: trying out the curriculum with another target group of 6 students. Phase 3:
implementing and evaluating the curriculum with the target group of 15 students. The one group
posttest design was conducted for this phase. The tools applied during phase 2 and 3 were a teacher
handbook, a student handbook, an observation form, a test, a questionnaire, and a reflective writing
ability test.
The developed training curriculum consisted of principle, objective, structure, learning
activity, media, measurement and evaluation, and criterion. The structure of the curriculum
included theory and practice with a total of 12 hours. There were 3 hours of theory, 9 hours of drills
and practices. The practicum aspect focused on self and peer reflection through different types of
writing and also various learning activities, namely, analyzing writings, discussion, individual and
group reflection. Moreover, the criterion stated the students attended at least 80% and must improve
their reflective writing abilities at the top level of reflection.
After applying the curriculum, only 13 of 15 students passed the prescribed criterion and 2
students did not. In addition, the trained students’ opinions on the curriculum were at the highest
level.
Key words: writing, reflective writing
INTRODUCTION
Among the skills used in human
communication, writing was a skill that was
the most complex and difficult. It was
because the writers have to apply their skills
to communicate their meaning without help
from the others. The writers should have
omniscient, thoughts and various experiences
that were integrated and transmitted to letters.
It showed the intellectual activities of the
writers i.e. data collection, planning,
transformation of thought to writing and
thought revision. Therefore, writing is a tool
that promotes the development of thinking
and intellection. This skill should be
developed and promoted intensively by using
writing to encourage the development of
complicated thinking. (Vygostky, 1978;
Vygostky, 1962)
Reflective thinking was a form of
metacognition. It was a higher thinking than
the others because it concerned their own
thinking. (RatchaneekornThongsukdee, 2002)
It showed the expectation, perception and
senses of experience through processes of
speaking or writing. The purposes were to
analyze, compare, plan or solve the problems.
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Moreover, reflective thinking enhanced
people to relate to critical thinking. It was the
characteristic that Thai students were
deficient and needed to encourage in the age
of information technology. The instrument
used to enhance the reflective thinking in
various careers such as nursing, medicine,
educational personnel and social science was
reflective writing. (Siu, Shroffand Hung,
2009)
The study results of Seifert (1988)
revealed that the encouragement of reflective
writing for students led students to higher
thinking especially in discovery, selfassessment, awareness and transfer prior
knowledge to the new one. According to the
idea, it showed that the reflective writing
related to knowledge, thinking, feeling and
writing. The enhancement of reflective
thinking for students could develop thinking,
feeling and writing skill at the same time.
Nowadays, the reflective writing is a
part of teaching and learning in higher
education and secondary schools. The
reflective writing is used as a tool that help
students to understand what they were
learning, what they were doing including a
plan for further future. The application of
reflective writing in occupations was mostly
found in teachers and nurses especially,
teachers. It showed in the teaching record
after class. McDonough (1994) Bailey
(1990) Kemmis and McTaggart (1998)
concluded that the teaching record (reflective
diary, reflective journal or journal writing)
was an important tool to improve and develop
the teaching capacity of teachers. It was
because teachers recorded the events or the
experience in their classes via observation,
analysis, interpretation, revision, expectation
and hypothesis and used the results for
teaching improvement and development.
The Institute of Physical Education
UdonThani Campus is one of the institute
that produced teachers as the standard of
curriculum and production defined by the
Teachers’ Council of Thailand. The graduates
achieved knowledge and key competencies
based on the 9 standards. The students could
teach in schools as specified in the standards
of professional. The first standard, language
and technology for teachers, concerned Thai
and English for communication and
technology. The curriculum purposed the
students to use their skills in language
communication while they observed the
teaching in preparation of professional
practice 1-3 and when they taught in the
professional practice course 1-2. The ability
of writing for communication was not enough
because the students should gain benefit from
the experience after each observation of
teaching. They would record reflectively to
revise what they have learned and practiced
that the knowledge and experience would be
related and distinguished. The result was to
develop and improve the students to be
reflective practitioner and applied that
knowledge as necessary for them.
WiyadaWannakhan (2011) has studied
the states, problems and needs in development
of reflective writing ability of second year
students, major in physical study. The study
revealed that most of students’ writing was
from observation without reflective thinking,
evaluation, analysis, conclusion and planning.
It showed the deficiency of writing ability in
reflective thinking. Moreover, the level of
reflective thinking of the students was low.
The reflective thinking should be used in
reflective writing to reflect the knowledge and
transparent their inner hidden thinking. The
problems solution was by training for students
who could not write their reflective thinking.
As the opinion survey of the students and
teachers, the training curriculum would
develop the students’ ability in reflective
writing that would be reflected their opinions
on events and learning. The students would
learn from revision of their experience and
develop the efficiency of their learning,
professional practice and further occupation.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The objectives of this study were to
construct a training curriculum to develop
reflective writing ability of students and to
study the effect of the curriculum, how the
ability of reflective writing is achieved.
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DESIGN OF THE STUDY
This study was divided into three
phases. The first phase was the study of
problems and need of developing reflective
writing ability to define the conceptual frame
of the training curriculum, and to outline the
tentative curriculum. 105 second year students
and 5 teachers were administered through
survey. The research data from questionnaires
in combination with direct interviews by the
research were gathered. Then the proposed
training curriculum was validated by 3 experts
in curriculum and instruction.
The second phase was developed and
verified the constructed curriculum. The 6
volunteers of 2nd year students were sampled.
3 units of study included theory and practice
with a total of 12 hours. There were 3 hours of
contents, 9 hours of drills and practices.
Reflective writing ability was assessed after
teaching. In addition, qualitative analysis was
also made from the information gathered by
behavioral observation. The data collected
were analyzed to find percentage and
arithmetic mean. The opinion questionnaire
toward the training was also analyzed.
The third phase of this research was to
implement and to evaluate the curriculum with
the target group of 15 students. The one group
posttest design was employed for this phase.
The 3 constructed units of study were implied,
assessed the students’ reflective writing ability,
and then determine the effectiveness of the
training curriculum by comparing the score
and the curriculum criterion.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Components of the training curriculum
After founding the problems and need
for a training curriculum, the researcher
drafted the curriculum. Then it was
investigated by experts and tried out for the
efficiency by research process respectively.
The training curriculum on developing
students’ reflective writing ability in Institute
of Physical Education Udonthani Campus was
developed by the research including the
following details:
1. Principle
Reflection was a form of mental
processing. It applied to gain a better
understanding complicated or unstructured
ideas and was largely based on the
reprocessing of knowledge, understanding
and possibly emotions that we already
possess. Reflection supported learning by
providing the right conditions for learning.
For example it was enabled students to feel
that they ‘owned’ their knowledge and
understanding. Considering what they were
learning, what they were doing including a
plan for further future was considering his/her
own learning behavior. Students were now the
active participants in their own learning.
In addition, for the 5th year student teachers,
who must take 1 year opportunity to teach in
school with full responsibility of a teacher as
specified in the standards of professional.
Reflection could encourage them to make
transition from pre-service teacher to
beginning teacher as well as to support
personal growth during internship. Researches
shown professional learning was made more
explicit by enabling associate teachers to take
time to think and reflect on their practice.
Reflection enabled them to confront issues,
look for solutions and solve problems.
As the importance shown and the need
of the non-reflective writing problems
solution, the training curriculum was
developed with the rationale as follows:
• students reflected their
thinking through writing which
was useful for an academic
life.
• It was most important
to emphasize practice more
than theory
• the curriculum focused on
participation among students
2. Objectives
• Have students get knowledge
and understanding the
foundation of reflective
writing, level of reflection,
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importance and format of
reflective writing
• Have students can write
reflectively in given formats
such as learning log, journal
writing about any events. Their
writing must show the 7 levels
of reflection; description,
feelings, evaluation, analysis,
general conclusions, specific
conclusion, and personal
action plans (Gibb, 1988)
• Have student be positive
attitude in reflective writing
and realize how it was
important to learning process.
3. Structure
Unit 1: Introduction to reflective
writing (3 hours)
Unit 2: Introduction to journal
writing about any events (3 hours)
Unit 3: Introduction to learning log
after studying (6 hours)
4. Learning activity
Each unit included the following 3
steps
4.1 Introduction : this step was
aimed at preparing students to take new
lessons. There were reviewing prior
knowledge and identifying the purpose.
4.2 Experience : the step provided
the learning experience that students were
expected to learn to develop their reflective
writing. The activities were analyzing a given
writing, group discussion, and presentation.
4.3 Conclusion : this was a step of
self-evaluate learning, revision their own
writing and then reflection by a teacher
5. Material
Course materials include case
studies, cards, pictures, a PowerPoint
presentation and writing formats.
6. Measurement and evaluation
The students were assessed all
domains of knowledge and understanding,
reflective writing ability, and attitude. Group
observation, activity participation and writing
assignment were used.
7. Criterion
• The students must have attended at
least 80%
• The students could write
reflectively and achieve
the highest level of reflection.
The results of phase I
After checking students’ writings
about the movie scene, the results indicated
that most students’ writing did not show the
depth of reflection. According to the direct
interview, teachers confirmed that the
students were poor at reflective writing. Most
of them did not know what reflection was and
realized how it was important. Moreover, it
was very clear in stating they have lower
reflective thinking. ( X=2.44, S.D.=0.66)
The results of phase 2
The results consisted of qualitative
and quantitative data. The training curriculum
was constructed and then tried out in this
phase. The curriculum objective was to
develop reflective writing ability of the 6
second year students. 3 units of study were
implemented. The average of the knowledge
and understanding test was 75%. The result of
checking their writing indicated the writing
ability of students after studying unit 2 was
poor and, unbelievably, they could develop to
meet the highest level as the criterion
prescribed after finishing unit 3
The results of phase 3
15 second year students applied to
study this curriculum. The objective of this
phase was to study the effect of the
curriculum on developing reflective writing
ability. The average score of unit 1 was
63.85%. The few students failed their unit 2,
writing test. The teacher highlighted
evaluation, analysis, general conclusions,
specific conclusion, and personal action plans
and then revised the contents again. Spending
time for recommend students’ work one by
one, students knew what they were wrong and
also used peer reflection. After unit 3, those
students could meet the expected
achievement, the 7 levels of reflection. When
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checking class attendance, 2 students were
absent two times. As a result, only 13 of 15
students passed the prescribed criterion.
The overall mean scores of opinions
of the activities and training curriculum were
at the high level. ( X=4.75, S.D.=0.23) Their
opinions were the activities help students to
participate in learning activities, encouraging
them to make discussion. These helped them
to practice their reflective thinking and
writing.
CONCLUSION
According to application of the
training curriculum to develop reflective
writing ability for students in the Institute of
Physical Education Udonthani Campus , the
researcher found that the samples taught by
this curriculum, had their posttest scores of
reflective writing ability as the curriculum
criterion prescribed. They wrote reflectively
by showing evidence of deeper reflection.
This means moving beyond the descriptive
and subjecting the experience to greater
scrutiny.
The students’ opinions toward the
curriculum were “Excellent” level. Besides,
according to qualitative analysis, found that
the samples were happy and cheerful during
participating in activities.
With the opportunity in training from case
studies, group discussion, self and peer
reflection, participation increased sharing
opinion and comparing their own ideas with
friends.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Although this curriculum was
developed for short-term training, it could be
designed as a unit of a subject. Furthermore, a
teacher played the important role fostering
intrinsic motivation more than extrinsic
motivation. Students with intrinsical
motivation would enjoy challenging work,
and would think in greater depth about
ideas. In contrast, student who did not wish to
think or apply their knowledge. Teachers
would have students work on projects that
allow them to see how the information is
relevant to their lives. Writing mistakes must
be reflected as immediately as possible
because students expected their continual
learning and prepared themselves before
going to the next unit. Explaining and
checking their understanding would work
most if there were few students in class. Yet,
good class control management brought the
effectiveness of training
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