Medical students' honesty in summative reflective writing: A rapid review

Extract from article:

Background

Reflection is a highly individual metacognitive process of contextualising experiences in our environment. It is a core skill for medical students, as it helps future practitioners tackle complex scenarios. It is subject to assessment, which goes against the philosophical underpinnings of reflection, thus risking students only emulating reflective practice without actually engaging with it. We sought to provide an overview of the current literature on medical students' views of summative reflective writing.

Methods

A rapid review of literature was carried out. Keywords were searched in six databases; items were retrieved and screened against the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Ten papers were included in the final review. Their quality was appraised by utilising the CASP checklist tools.

Findings

Seven primary research papers addressed honesty of reflective practice in a variety of different settings. Students were found to ‘game the system’ by tailoring their reflections to meet the assessment criteria. One paper postulated that students are honest in their reflections. Three expert opinions showed congruent views on the need for diversification of reflective practice in medical school and going back to the definition of reflection.