Impact of Differently Worded Reflection Prompts on Engineering Students’ Metacognitive Strategies
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
- Page Count
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18
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--40572
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/40572
- Download Count
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369
Paper Authors
Heidi Diefes-Dux University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Heidi A. Diefes-Dux is a Professor in Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (UNL). She received her B.S. and M.S. in Food Science from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Food Process Engineering from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. She was an inaugural faculty member of the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University and now leads the Discipline-Based Education Research Initiative in the College of Engineering at UNL. Her research focuses on the development, implementation, and assessment of modeling and design activities with authentic engineering contexts. She also focuses on the implementation of learning objective-based grading and reflection.
Emily Stratman University of Nebraska - Lincoln
Emily Stratman is an undergraduate student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is majoring in biological systems engineering, with an emphasis in biomedical engineering. Her research focus is in the influence of reflection on students' metacognitive strategies. This summer she will be participating in an REU program at Utah State University and working on a project that measures students' spatial abilities.
Abstract
New engineering educators are often unaware that students struggle to reach a deep level of metacognitive processing when reflecting on their thinking/learning strategies. To design reflections that successfully engage students in valuable levels of metacognitive processing, instructors need to recognize their goals for their students and align reflection prompt word choice to these goals. This study used differently worded reflection prompts to engage students in thinking about their weekly performance and the learning strategies they used to meet course objectives. The purpose was to examine the effects of word choice for reflection prompts on the type and level of metacognition expressed in students’ written reflections. Data collection took place during a first-year engineering course at a large Midwest university in Springs 2017 and 2018. An a priori coding scheme and qualitative coding analysis were used to identify metacognitive strategies in students’ reflective responses. Results showed that reflection prompts focused on using feedback to evaluate and improve performance encouraged the use of planning, action, and evaluating metacognitive strategies, and prompts that focus on using proficiency with the learning objectives to reflect on what is going well or what is difficult encouraged the use of monitoring strategies.
Diefes-Dux, H., & Stratman, E. (2022, August), Impact of Differently Worded Reflection Prompts on Engineering Students’ Metacognitive Strategies Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40572
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