Self-reflections in an online course – Reflecting learning strategies?

Abstract

The aim was to analyze the content of students’ self-reflections regarding their perceived learning strategies according to themes and categories of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI). The self-reflections were collected from an undergraduate online course with 32 physiotherapy students, mean age 26 years (range 20–43 years). A directed content analysis was conducted. This deductive method was used to analyze the framework in our context. The prior formulated categories of learning and study strategies from the LASSI and the three broad themes effort-related, goal-oriented and cognitive-oriented activities, were applied. The results showed support for the relevance of the themes and categories to the students’ expressions in our context. The categories were represented in the students’ self-reflections. This information will be useful to further support using a variety of ways to promote meta-cognition among students, such as alternating the use of self-reflections and use of the inventory.