Asking the Right Questions: Using Reflective Essays for Experiential Assessment

Abstract

Background: Experiential educators face difficulties assessing participants and programs because there are so many measurement tools to choose from, many measures have validity issues such as those based on self-reported data, objective tests may not adequately measure social or psychological outcomes, and tests in content disciplines often assess knowledge rather than skill in synthesis, analysis, or evaluation. Purpose: We hypothesized that an open-ended essay final would reliably measure individual growth, internalization of foundational threshold concepts in our disciplines, and the effectiveness of our outdoor, interdisciplinary program. Methodology/Approach: Student essays contained 36 student-generated concepts spread across our four disciplines (biology, writing, history, and recreation) which we compared with 20 threshold concepts from professional literature. Findings/Conclusions: Individual students identified about half of the concepts generated by the whole group, illustrating that their learning varied significantly. Our group identified 13 of the published threshold concepts. Students demonstrated comprehension of threshold concepts—foundational ways of seeing—as opposed to restatements of information from teachers’ lectures. Implications: Writing essays aids permanent cognitive and behavioral learning; coding responses to open-ended essay questions for threshold concepts can be a valuable tool for both individual student and program assessment in experiential education.