Impact of reflection writing on the learning ability of Indian medical students

Reflective writing develops meta-cognition among students. Therefore, it is of interest to compare effectiveness of post lecture reflective writing to didactic lecture between individual and group reflective writing. Hence, we included 124 first-year students from AIIMS Bhopal, India and divided them in two groups of 62 students. Both groups took a pre-test using a reflection questionnaire. Students were taught reflective writing. Both groups attended physiology lectures on two different topics. First lecture on body fluids where Group A wrote reflections individually and Group B did so in sub-groups (B1 to B6). After another lecture on Pathophysiology of oedema, Group A wrote reflections in groups and Group B wrote individually (A1 to A6). Both groups took a test in the form of MCQ about reflective writing on lectures. After intervention both groups took a post-test using a reflection questionnaire. Mean and standard deviation of Pre-test is 3.86 ± 0.86 and Post-test is 7.58 ± 1.01, respectively. The Mean and standard deviation of reflection who wrote individually is 38.05 ± 4.41 and in group is 27.45 ± 3.93, respectively with p-value < 0.05. Evaluation of students who wrote reflection in groups after second lecture the mean and standard deviation of reflection who wrote individually is 38.22 ± 4.64 and in group is 27.03 ± 2.87 respectively with p-value < 0.05. The performance of students who wrote reflection in groups is not satisfactory as compared to students who wrote their reflection individually.