Reflective experiences in a General Chemistry course for Engineers: self-assessment, improvement and academic performance

One of the key components in the development of holistic professionals in the field of engineering is to promote soft skills. Among those soft skills, students are challenged to achieve a competence by recognizing the need for lifelong learning. Our institution fosters the incorporation of these competencies from the first day of class. In the General Chemistry course, students are required to reflect on their learning progress after each exam. A taxonomy of reflection was incorporated to monitor students ‘progress in their reflective skills as well as their academic progress. Each level of reflection is structured to parallel Bloom's taxonomy and to support mastery of a new skill. The content of the reflection, analyzed by a searching tool, is later compared to the final grade of students. The present work looks to understand if there is any relationship between the level of reflection and academic performance in General Chemistry students.