Encouraging Reflective Practices in Doctoral Students through Research Journals

Authors

Amy Orange, University of Houston - Clear LakeFollow

Abstract

This study developed after I read numerous research journals created by my doctoral students. At times, students included considerable amounts of detail, reflecting on their research processes and their roles as researchers. At other times, the journals appeared to be a mere afterthought, seemingly completed in an evening to satisfy the requirement and get a grade. And, as with many things in the introductory qualitative research course, students expressed a need for more structured guidelines for their journals. In response, I developed a set of guidelines and prompts students could use to guide their journal entries. With this study, I discovered that the introduction of guidelines and prompts increased student reflexivity, the level of detail in their journal entries, and the length of their journals increased.

Keywords

Reflexive Journals, Qualitative Research

Author Bio(s)

Amy Orange teaches courses in qualitative research and research design at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Her research interests include teacher bullying and issues regarding the teaching of qualitative research. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: orange@uhcl.edu.

Publication Date

12-4-2016

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2450

Recommended APA Citation

Orange, A. (2016). Encouraging Reflective Practices in Doctoral Students through Research Journals. The Qualitative Report, 21(12), 2176-2190. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2016.2450