Making Reflection Assignments Meaningful and Enjoyable for Health Professions Students and Faculty

Purpose: Recognizing the professional and personal benefits of self-reflection, health professions programs routinely incorporate reflection activities into their curricula. However, designing, administering, and grading engaging, meaningful reflection activities that can be utilized for in-person or online teaching can be challenging for faculty and less than enjoyable for students. This study explored student perceptions of a shared activity using photovoice to stimulate individual and group reflection and discussion of learning during clinical experiences. Methods: Second year, doctor of physical therapy students were asked to reflect on their clinical experiences. During the semester-long assignment, each student completed a photovoice slide representing their experience. Slides were shared and discussed with classmates on the last day of class. Student impressions were captured via anonymous survey. Results: Forty-three students completed the assignment and participated in the post-activity survey. An inductive, semantic thematic analysis was utilized, and independently coded themes were discussed, refined, and externally reviewed. Three primary themes emerged from the survey data: students enjoyed the assignment; the photovoice technique encouraged meaningful, deep reflection; and reflections extended beyond the student and focused on patients. Conclusions: Students reported overwhelmingly positive responses. The photovoice project was personally meaningful, and students enjoyed the freedom to be creative without strict rubric requirements. Students also enjoyed sharing and discussing their reflections and identified this as an important difference from other more traditional reflective assignments. Easily developed and administered photovoice projects are effective at facilitating enjoyable, reflective learning activities that can be shared among classmates or across disciplines in online or in-person learning environments.