摘要:Background: Teacher feedback on student reflective writing is recommended to improve learners’ reflective
competence. To be able to improve teacher feedback on reflective writing, it is essential to gain insight
into which characteristics of written feedback stimulate students’ reflection processes. Therefore, we
investigated (1) which characteristics can be distinguished in written feedback comments on reflective
writing and (2) which of these characteristics are perceived to stimulate students’ reflection processes.
Methods: We investigated written feedback comments from forty-three teachers on their students’ reflective
essays. In Study 1, twenty-three medical educators grouped the comments into distinct categories. We used
Multiple Correspondence Analysis to determine dimensions in the set of comments. In Study 2, another
group of twenty-one medical educators individually judged whether the comments stimulated reflection by
rating them on a five-point scale. We used t-tests to investigate whether comments classified as stimulating
and not stimulating reflection differed in their scores on the dimensions.
Results: Our results showed that characteristics of written feedback comments can be described in three dimensions:
format of the feedback (phrased as statement versus question), focus of the feedback (related to the levels of students’
reflections) and tone of the feedback (positive versus negative). Furthermore, comments phrased as a question and in a
positive tone were judged as stimulating reflection more than comments at the opposite side of those dimensions
(t = (14.5) = 6.48; p = < .001 and t = (15) = −1.80; p < .10 respectively). The effect sizes were large for format of the
feedback comment (r = .86) and medium for tone of the feedback comment (r = .42).
Conclusions: This study suggests that written feedback comments on students’ reflective essays should be formulated
as a question, positive in tone and tailored to the individual student’s reflective level in order to stimulate students to
reflect on a slightly higher level. Further research is needed to examine whether incorporating these characteristics into
teacher training helps to improve the quality of written feedback comments on reflective writing.
关键词:Undergraduate medical education;Written feedback;Reflective writing;Professional development