Embedding reflection into the science curriculum in higher education

Across traditional lab-based science subjects, including biological sciences, most learning is discipline-specific and focused on developing scientific skills and knowledge. However, graduate employers are increasingly demanding that employees have additional skills, including the ability to recognise their own strengths and limitations, a skill that can be structured around reflection. Reflective practice is standard practice in people-centred professions, but is seldom used in more lab-based subjects. To address this area for development, an undergraduate biology course at the University of Portsmouth, UK, trialled including the inclusion of reflection in assessment to encourage students to explore decision making and teamwork while working on a group assessment, and to support the conscious use of feedback as feed-forward. The reflective element supported a wider assessment strategy that included formative and summative elements, group work and peer marking of work that was discipline-specific (lab reports). While the current trial was small, this paper will reflect on the operations of the pilot, which showed promise in supporting a different type of thinking among students and could form the start of a wider programme of reflective development across a science degree, and thus may support employability in science graduates. This paper will share the practice of the intervention.