A comparison of two methods of teaching reflective ability in Year 3 medical students

Medical Education 2012: 46: 807–814 Context Little is known about best practices for teaching and learning reflection. We hypothesised that reflective ability scores on written reflections would be higher in students using critical reflection guidelines, or receiving feedback on reflective skill in addition to reflection content, or both, compared with those in students who received only a definition of reflection or feedback on reflection content alone. Methods Using a 2 (guidelines) × 2 (feedback) × 2 (time) design, we randomly assigned half of our sample of 149 Year 3 medical students to receive critical reflection guidelines and the other half to receive only a definition of critical reflection. We then randomly divided both groups in half again so that one half of each group received feedback on both the content and reflective ability in their reflections, and the other received content feedback alone. The learners’ performance was measured on the first and third written reflections of the academic year using a previously validated scoring rubric. We calculated descriptive statistics for the reflection scores and conducted a repeated‐measures analysis of variance with two between‐groups factors, guidelines and feedback, and one within‐group factor, occasion, using the measure of reflective ability as the dependent variable. Results We failed to find a significant interaction between guidelines and feedback (F = 0.51, d.f. = 1, 145, p = 0.48). However, the provision of critical reflection guidelines improved reflective ability compared with the provision of a definition of critical reflection only (F = 147.1, d.f. = 1, 145, p