Examining the Relationship Between Reflective Writing Behaviour and Self-regulated Learning Competence: A Time-Series Analysis

Abstract

Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) competence is imperative to academic achievement. For reflective academic writing tasks, which are common for university assessments, this is especially the case since students are often required to plan the task independently to be successful. The purpose of the current study was to examine different reflection behaviours of postgraduate students that were required to reflect on individual tasks over a fifteen-week-long higher education course. Forty students participated in a standardised questionnaire at the beginning of the course to assess their SRL competence and then participated in weekly individual reflection tasks on Google Docs. We examined students’ reflective writing behaviours based on time-series and correlation analysis of fine-grained data retrieved from Google Docs. More specifically, reflection behaviours between students with high SRL and low SRL competence were investigated. The results show that students with high SRL competence tend to reflect more frequently and more systematically than students with low SRL competence. Even though no statistically significant difference in academic performance between the two groups was found, there were statistical correlations between academic performance and individual reflective writing behaviours. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the insights into the temporal reflection patterns of different SRL competence student clusters, the impact of these behaviours on students’ academic performance, and potential suggestions for appropriate support for students with different levels of SRL.