A course design approach that encourages reflective practice habits

Reflective practice is a valuable workplace skill for graduates, enhancing learning, improving performance and advancing professional development. Concerns that graduates often lack the competencies required for critical and deep reflection on their abilities and knowledge are seen in diverse countries. There has been little growth in comprehending how students transition their application of reflection to the fostering of life-long habits of reflective practice. Additionally, the question of how to foster learning that carries through to the workplace needs further attention. This project addresses the challenge of studying students’ responses to reflective practice in different courses. It examines an approach to developing reflective practice skills and habits in a capstone accounting course. The research explains the process of fostering and assessing reflective practice and evaluates the effectiveness of the approach. The findings identify that students produced reflections with various elements that contribute to quality reflections. Incorporating self-identified goal-setting and review assisted in the development of habits of reflection. Students gained confidence in reflective practice and articulated their commitment to using reflective practice in the future. This research will interest educators across disciplines in their teaching and assessment of reflective practice.