Embedding reflection into the science curriculum in higher education: a case study

Across traditional lab-based science subjects, including biological sciences, most learning is discipline specific and focussed on developing scientific skills and knowledge. However, graduate employers are increasingly demanding that employees have additional skills, including the ability to recognise their own strengths and limitations, a skill that can be structured around reflection. Reflective practice is standard practice in people-centred professions, but is seldom used in more lab-based subjects. To address this area for development, an undergraduate Biology course at the University of Portsmouth, UK, trialled including reflection in assessment to encourage students to explore decision making and teamwork while working on a group assessment, and to support the conscious use of feedback as feed forward. The reflective element supported a wider assessment strategy which included formative and summative elements, group work and peer marking of work that was discipline specific (lab reports). Students were generally supportive of the assessment, feeling that it gave them a voice and a place to justify their thinking, although some students found talking about their own decision-making processes difficult. While the current trial was small, it showed promise in supporting a different type of thinking among students and could form the start of a wider program of reflective development across a science degree, which may support employability in science graduates. This case study will share the practice of the intervention.