Our intended goal for both the reflection activity and our analysis was to see how students
understood reflection and appreciate the skill of reflecting as a lifelong learning tool. In class we
discussed reflection and the purpose of specific activities after the survey of questions noted in
this paper; this provided an assessment of student beliefs prior to any intervention. Previous
observations made and statements on end of semester evaluations in both courses suggested that
students simply viewed all reflection assignments as just a grade or a waste of time. Responses in
the past to various reflection activities revealed a high percentage of students approaching these
activities as if they were a problem set with one correct answer. Students tended to submit
responses geared toward what they thought the instructor wanted as opposed to focusing on what
was most important to them. For example, when seniors were asked to reflect on their
experiences and provide their definition of engineering design, many students used Googlegenerated
definitions of engineering design, even though these students progressed through a
curriculum with design embedded into every semester within a set of project-based courses. The
opportunity to make meaning of past design experiences seemed lost or not retained.
Our findings suggest that students view reflection mostly as an opportunity to look back at what
they have done in the past. In fact, approximately 40% of the responses only focused on
reflection as looking back. A far smaller set of responses went beyond reflection as a lens to look
at the past to include description of reflection as a process or something to inform future
decisions. Responses that described reflection as a process provided added depth as to how one
goes about reflecting as opposed to simply stating that it looked back and/or impacted the future.
These responses are viewed as students identifying reflection as a skill rather than simply an
activity to be done because the instructor assigns it. The approximately half of our student
sample viewing reflection as a process suggests engineering students need to be explicitly
educated about what reflection is and how it can be used as an engineering skill rather than
simply assigning reflection activities without context. This is particularly important for students
to recognize this skill as a component that can inform their future decisions. The low percentage
of students mentioning the future, either in terms of themselves or their project, suggests they do
not see a connection between what they have experienced and how it can impact their future
experiences.