understanding management students' reflective practice through blogging
TRANSCRIPT
Internet and Higher Education 16 (2013) 23–31
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Internet and Higher Education
Understanding management students' reflective practice through blogging
Gihan Osman a,⁎, Joyce Hwee Ling Koh b,1
a Graduate School of Education, American University in Cairo, AUC Avenue, P.O. Box 74, New Cairo 11835, Egyptb National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616, Singapore
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +20 1271112968; fax:E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Osman
(J.H.L. Koh).1 Tel.: +65 6790 3356(office).
1096-7516/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Eldoi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2012.07.001
a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Accepted 5 July 2012
Keywords:Cooperative/collaborative learningLifelong learningComputer-mediated communicationPost-secondary educationInteractive learning environments
The paper discusses the results of a study on the use of blogging to encourage students to engage in the mak-ing of theory–practice linkages and critical thinking within the context of a graduate management course.Sixty-five students participated in collaborative blogging for a period of five weeks. The transcripts of theseblogs were analyzed using content analysis and chi-square analysis. The findings point to the potential ofblogs as a tool for reflection and learning in practitioner-oriented courses. The participants demonstrated areasonably high level of critical thinking and were able to link theory to their experiences and observationsin the work place. The implications of these results for the design of blogging tasks are discussed.
© 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc.
1. Introduction
Employees are expected to apply the latest in knowledge andskills to a variety of ill-defined situations (Pate, Martin, Beaumont, &McGoldrick, 2000). However, a common complaint is that profession-al development opportunities often focus either on theory or practice,but rarely establish the links between them (Berggren & Soderlund,2011). According to numerous researchers, professional educationneeds to bridge that divide by encouraging reflection, awareness,and experimentation with new concepts (Berggren & Soderlund,2011; Gallos, 2008).
Reflection, defined by Moon (1999) as “a mental process purposeand/or outcome in which manipulation of meaning is applied to rela-tively complicated or unstructured ideas in learning or to problemsfor which there is no obvious solution” (p.155), is often suggestedas an important instructional strategy in professional higher educa-tion (Berdrow & Evers, 2011; Kwan & Leung, 1996; Schön, 1987;Sluijsmans, Dochy, & Moerkerke, 1998). Hall and Davison (2007) sug-gest that learners often approach the subject matter they cover dur-ing professional development courses with naïve sets of ideas,assumptions, and beliefs. Through reflection, learners get to reviseand challenge these ideas, explore new perspectives, reconstructand deepen their knowledge of the issues at hand (Cunliffe, 2004;Monaghan, 2011; Pavlovich, Collins, & Jones, 2009).
Recent years have witnessed the use of blogs in education as a toolto support student reflection (e.g.; Walker, 2005; Williams & Jacobs,2004). A blog is a site that enables the owner to present content
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online without programming skills. It also allows the author to addhyperlinks, videos, photos to the post. Entries are displayed in reversechronological order, from new to old. These affordances of blogs havebeen exploited by educators to support student reflection. Among themany benefits attributed to blogs in the literature is the empower-ment of students by giving them a voice and a legitimate venue forself-expression (Ferdig & Trammell, 2004; Oravec, 2002), thus in-creasing students' sense of ownership, engagement and interest inlearning (Boulos, Maramba, & Wheeler, 2006; Wang & Hsua, 2008).It is also believed that the collaborative affordances of blogs might fa-cilitate enriched opportunities for communication, challenge, cogni-tive conflict, deeper thinking and knowledge construction (Du &Wagner, 2006; Hall & Davison, 2007). However, research on the edu-cational use and effectiveness of blogs is still in its infancy. Williamsand Jacobs (2004) point out the scarcity of studies that investigateblogs ‘empirically’. The majority of published studies depend onself-report data or anecdotal evidence (e.g. Brescia & Miller, 2006;Coutinho, 2007) to imply the usefulness of blogs as a learning tool.There is a dearth of studies that critically examine the quality of stu-dents' reflection, especially in the area of management education.Very few studies provide sufficient explanations to support their con-clusions, thereby limiting the development of pedagogical guidelinesto support the design of blogging tasks to facilitate reflection andlearning (Hall & Davison, 2007).
Given these gaps, this study seeks to examine the value of blogs asa medium for supporting reflective practice in the context of an MBAprogram that educates full-time working managers in Egypt. Usingcontent analysis, it first examines the quality of these managementstudents' blog reflections in terms of the critical thinking, and second-ly, in terms of the theory–practice links articulated. This study movesbeyond anecdotal and self-report data about blog effectiveness. Theguidelines that can be considered when designing blogging tasks
24 G. Osman, J.H.L. Koh / Internet and Higher Education 16 (2013) 23–31
that facilitate reflective practice in professionally-oriented courseswill also be discussed.
2. Literature review
According to Attle and Baker (2007), the challenge of managementeducation in the twenty-first century is to combine academic rigorand practical application. A common complaint about programs at theMBA level, for example, is that there seems to be an overemphasis ontheory at the expense of practice (Berggren & Soderlund, 2011). Assuch, managers often complain that their MBA classes are irrelevant totheir challenges and experiences in the workplace (Daft & Lewin,2008; Pfeffer & Fong, 2002). Management education needs to addressthe link between theory and practice through critical reflection(Berggren & Soderlund, 2011; Cunliffe, 2004; Gallos, 2008).
2.1. Blogging and reflection
One of the traditional channels of reflection has been individualjournal writing. In professional fields such as teacher education, re-flective journals are regarded as integral to the professional develop-ment process. Learners would often document their understandingsof content covered, experiences, behaviors, thus providing a recordof their development. Traditionally the only audience for such indi-vidual journals has been the instructor. The privacy of the processdefinitely has the advantage of providing a sheltered environmentfor students to share their ideas and anxieties (Thorpe, 2004). How-ever, this advantage often has the downside of providing limited op-portunities for idea sharing, exposure to different perspectives, andchallenge to existing knowledge and assumptions (Hall & Davison,2007).
Juxtaposing blogging against traditional journal writing, severalstudies of blogging have focused on how its technical affordances bet-ter support reflection by enabling collaborative learning (Ferdig &Trammell, 2004; Hall & Davison, 2007; Oravec, 2003). Peers for one,share a common language that facilitates interaction (Ladyshewsky& Gardner, 2008) and opportunities for idea exchange and cognitiveconflict (Hall & Davison, 2007). Having an audience compels learnersto more critically consider and articulate their opinions, since it forcesthem to think about how others regard their ideas (Wang & Hsua,2008). It leads to more opportunities for in-depth discussions, knowl-edge construction and higher-order thinking (Ferdig & Trammell,2004).
The effectiveness of blogs as a tool for learning and reflection seemsto be accepted by enthusiasts (e.g., Hall & Davison, 2007; Williams &Jacobs, 2004). The effectiveness of blogs was typically argued for con-ceptually but little analysis has been made of the content of studentblogs and their quality of reflection. Most studies investigate the effec-tiveness of blogs for reflection using self-report data (e.g., Ellison &Wu, 2008; Williams & Jacobs, 2004; Zeng & Harris, 2005).
Some researchers combined surveys with the analysis of blogs asdata sources to examine the viability of blogs as a medium for reflec-tion. Farmer, Yue, and Brooks (2008) examined the use of blogs by220 undergraduate liberal arts students as a medium for reflectionon class content. The researchers concluded that preliminary resultsbased on 56 responses to a survey and holistic observations forposts and comments support the use of blogs as a learning tool. How-ever, no systematic analysis of blog content was attempted for thatstudy. Glass and Spiegelman (2007) holistically assessed the blogsof approximately 50 undergraduate math and computer science stu-dents and determined that blogs resulted in information sharing, re-flection and knowledge sharing. Stiler and Philleo (2003) comparedthe reflections of two classes of undergraduate pre-service educationstudents using blogs to those produced by students in previous clas-ses who kept regular paper-based journals. Subjective comparisons,
not using a rubric, seemed to suggest that students using blogs postedreflections that were deeper, more analytical and evaluative.
A small number of studies aimed at a deeper more deliberate anal-ysis of blogs by coding data using frameworks and establishinginter-rater reliability. For example, Hall and Davison (2007) analyzedthe blogs of undergraduate students taking an information deliverycourse. The researchers analyzed the first-level comments ratherthan main blog entries or comments to comments. The analysis of905 comments according to Kember et al.'s(1999) simplified frame-work revealed that only 21% of the blogs were reflective, while therest where non-reflective or off-task. For the purposes of their exper-imental study, Xie, Ke, and Sharma (2008) examined the impact ofpeer feedback and blogging on students' reflective thinking. Analyz-ing the posts of 44 undergraduate students in a political sciencecourse by using the coding scheme by Wong, Kember, Chung, andYan (1995) for assessing reflective journals, blogging emerged as hav-ing a positive impact on students' reflections, whereas peer feedbackon blogs seemed to have a negative effect.
2.2. Critical thinking through blogging
Critical thinking is often considered as the development of a habitof continuous reflection and questioning (Arend, 2009; King, 1995),which is important for enhancing managers' personal awarenessand personal action in the light of theory. This is an important aimof management education (Berggren & Soderlund, 2011; Cunliffe,2004; Gallos, 2008). Therefore, it is relevant for describing a relevantaspect of management students' quality of reflection. Numerous re-searchers as explained above support the use of blogs for deeperthinking. Some even suggest higher critical thinking as an outcomeof using blogs (e.g., Glass & Spiegelman, 2007;Oravec, 2002;Williams & Jacobs, 2004; Zeng & Harris, 2005). However, few studiesfocus on systematically examining critical thinking as a dimension ofquality reflection. One of the studies, Loving, Schroeder, Kang,Shimek, and Herbert (2007) examined blogging within the contextof a professional learning community of university researchers, facul-ty, and mathematics and science teachers. Analysis of the bloggingtranscripts, using Khine, Yeap, and Lok's (2003) framework, revealedthat almost 29% of the blogs manifested elements of critical thinkingdefined as “evaluating solutions through the use of evidence.” Anoth-er study, Yang (2009), examined the blogs of 43 English as a ForeignLanguage student teachers in Taiwan. The blogs were analyzed usingHo and Richards' (1993) framework specific to examining thejournals of student teachers. Yang's findings suggested that about38% of the blogs were critical, versus, descriptive, in nature.
With the exception of Williams and Jacobs (2004) and Loving et al.(2007), none of the above studies looked at blogging in practitioner-oriented learning environments that could bemore reflective ofmanage-ment education contexts. In addition, very few of the studies examinedthe critical thinking reflected in participant reflections by systematicallyusing frameworks that would introduce an element of objectivity to theanalysis, thereby introducing the possibility of comparison across stud-ies. In this study, the framework of Greenlaw and DeLoach (2003) waschosen to examine the critical quality of these reflections. This codingscheme was chosen for the following reasons: (1) it was tested in previ-ous research and the reliability was 0.88 (Osman & Duffy, 2010); (2) itoffered a detailed rubric with clarifying indicators that would aid consis-tency across raters; (3) the scheme classified critical reflective thinkinginto six levels, allowing for more gradation in scoring, unlike less refinedschemes such asKhine et al. (2003) that only hadone category for criticalthinking.
2.3. Fostering theory–practice linkages in management education
Learning from experience has been a key tenant in managementeducation. A well-established model used pervasively is Kolb's (1984)
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experiential learning cycle which purports that “learning is the processwhereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experi-ence” (p.26) through reflection, abstraction, and experimentation.Kolb outlines an iterative learning cycle that comprises four phases:(1) concrete experience; (2) reflective observations; (3) abstract con-ceptualization; and (4) active experimentation (Vince, 1998). Bygoing through these four phases, the experiences of the learner are ab-stracted as personal principles of action which can be transferred be-yond their current context of use. Kolb (1984) also suggested thatlearners vary in that they tend to gravitate towards particular phasesand focus on these at the expense of other phases, hence compromisingtheir learning.
Kolb's (1984) learning cycle is essentially a constructivist theorythat proposes knowledge to be created and re-created by the learner(Kolb & Kolb, 2005). It thus gives the learner substantial control overhis/her learning and development. This is part of its continuing ap-peal for management education. Its characteristics, as outlined byKolb (Kolb, 1984; Kolb & Kolb, 2005), are useful in providing guide-lines for the design of learning opportunities for managers. One ofits strengths is that it regards the resolution of conflict between dia-lectically opposedmodes (e.g., reflection and action, theory and expe-rience) of adaptation to the world as essential, thereby addressingsome of the concerns of management education explained with re-gard to focusing on either theory or practice.
For all the above reasons, the experiential learning cycle was cho-sen as an explicit framework to enhance the awareness of students ofthe essential phases entailed in the experiential learning process. Itwas hoped that this awareness would help learners attend to differ-ent modes of learning and to make connections between the theoriesthey covered in class and their experiences and observations outsidethe class. Due to the academic nature of the course as part of amaster's degree, the abstraction phase was explicitly elaborated onto include theory and was named accordingly. To date, Kolb's(1984) learning cycle has not been examined in the context of blog-ging. Due to our interest in the possible influence of using Kolb's(1984) learning cycle as a framework to guide managers' blog reflec-tions, we developed a scheme to analyze the focus of those reflectionsin terms of the cycle's four phases as outlined in the methods section.
The current study therefore contributes to the existing gaps in blog-ging research by examining the reflections of professional managers,thus addressing the need to investigate the use of blogs for reflectionin practitioner-oriented and less receptive contexts. It uses two frame-works, Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle and Greenlaw andDeLoach's (2003) critical thinking framework as these are more appro-priate to the context of blogs.
2.4. Research questions
In view of the following gaps in literature, the present study seeks toadd to emerging literature by triangulating the findings of self-reportedstudies, with data examining the content of actual blogs. The followingresearch questions were addressed in this study:
1. How critically evaluative were the reflections of graduate businessstudents when they engaged in blogging?
2. In their reflections, to what extent did these students link theoryand practice? What phases of Kolb's experiential learning cycledid these students focus on?
3. Methods
3.1. Participants
The participants were 65 MBA students enrolled in two organiza-tional behavior classes conducted at a private university in Egypt inthe fall of 2010. Fifty-seven of them volunteered responses to a
post-task questionnaire that yielded demographic information, yield-ing a response rate of 87.7%. About 61% of respondents were male and39% female. Approximately 54% (31 out of 57 participants) were20–30 years old. The remaining students were above 30 years old.Students varied in their educational background. About 46% had abachelor's degree in Engineering, 26% in Business in addition to mul-tiple other backgrounds. Almost 98% of students reported that theyeither felt ‘very comfortable’ or ‘comfortable’ communicating in writ-ten English. About 90% were not familiar with blogging.
3.2. Context and task
The course is a 10-week compulsory course taught during the firstyear of a two-year MBA program. It covers major theories in organiza-tional behavior. The instructor usually focuses on the application andevaluation of theories in relation to workplace contexts.
The reason for introducing the blogging activity into this coursewas to help students relate the theories and concepts covered duringclass to their own professional contexts. Students were required toblog for a period of 5 weeks during the second half of the 10-weekcourse. To encourage participation in terms of quality and quantity,students were informed that the activity constituted 20% of theirfinal grade. Overwhelmed with competing demands, Egyptian MBAstudents often tend to prioritize tasks that feed into their coursegrades. In response to their packed schedules, students were askedto post once and respond to at least to two members of their groupeach week. To address intrinsic motivation, the instructor alsoexplained the purpose and value of this activity to students' profes-sional development.
Students were given a 60-minute introduction to discuss the valueof reflective practice and Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle aswell as to familiarize themselves with the blogging tool used for thetask, namely Blogger.com. As most students were new to formal re-flection and blogging, they were given some guidelines regardingpossible contributions to the blog. Students were told that theycould discuss any issues (experiences, problems, experiments, obser-vations) related to their professional lives and organizational behav-ior topics. They were especially encouraged to make connections totheory as a form of abstraction. However, to enhance students'sense of ownership of the blogs and their reflections, these guidelineswere kept to a minimum. Students were informed that they would begraded on the quantity and quality of their postings; they were en-couraged to follow the same quality guidelines suggested for othercourse assessments such as evaluating concepts, linking theory topractice, and developing evidence based arguments. No detailedgrading rubric was provided to students.
As one of the aims for this task was to make the blogging activitymeaningful and students' privacy and comfort concerns had to beaddressed, it was decided that blogging groups should be self-assignedand that access to the blogs should be limited to members of thegroup, the instructor, and anyone else that the groupwould give permis-sion to. Students were asked to form groups up to a maximum of eightstudents, and to name their groups.
During the first week, the instructor moderated the blogs. Howev-er, this practice was discontinued due to the believed threat to stu-dent ownership. Students either stopped commenting after theinstructor posted or they only addressed the instructor's questionsand ignored questions and contributions by peers.
3.3. Data collection
The data analyzed in this study were archived transcripts for blogscreated by the 65MBA students over a period of 5 weeks. Students di-vided themselves into 10 self-assigned groups, ranging from three tonine students per group. Students only posted in their own groupsbut not across groups.
Table 1Level of critical thinking according to Greenlaw and DeLoach' (2003) framework.
Level of critical thinking Totalfrequencyof postsby category
Totalpercentageof postsby category
Standardizedresiduals
Level 0: off-task 35 6.4 −42.6Level 1 : unilateral descriptions 86 15.8 8.4Level 2: simplistic alternatives /argument
163 30 85.4
Level 3: basic analysis 142 26.2 64.4Level 4: theoretical inference 74 13.6 −3.6Level 5: empirical inference 41 7.6 −36.6Level 6: merging values with analysis 2 0.4 −75.6Total 543 100
Expected frequency of each category=77.6 posts.
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At the end of the course, students were informed that their blogsand responses to questionnaire items would not only be used for as-sessment and evaluation purposes at the course and school levels, butmight also be used for publication and knowledge sharing purposes.Theywere thus providedwith the choice to voluntarily provide consentto share their data anonymously and in aggregate form. Fifty-four stu-dents provided their signed consent. Although all the archived blogswere analyzed, only quotes given by consenting students will be sharedfor the purposes of this article.
3.4. Data analysis
Archives for the blogging transcripts were obtained after the end ofthe semester. In addition to the actual post or comment, Blogger.comprovides information about blogging thread, time, and date of posting.Two independent coders coded all the blog units. Coders started codinga limited set of data independently. All differences in codingwere nego-tiated to derive agreement. Refinements and modifications to codingrubrics weremadewhere necessary. Overall code frequencies were cal-culated. These were also broken down by topic thread and group.
3.5. Unit of analysis
We chose the message level as our unit of analysis. This consti-tutes the contribution of an individual to the blog at one point intime. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) identified the completemessage as a preferred unit of analysis because it: (1) is easily identi-fiable, thereby reducing reliability and validity issues; (2) is a unit de-termined by the author rather than the coder; and (3) “providescoders with sufficient information to infer underlying cognitive pro-cesses” (p. 9).
3.6. Analytical tools
Two frameworks were used to analyze the archived blog posts andcomments. The first rubric is a modified version of the critical think-ing framework by Greenlaw and DeLoach (2003), which was usedto answer the first research question (see Appendix A). It comprisedseven levels (Level 0 to Level 6) which described the quality of stu-dents' critical thinking from those that were off-task to those thatused both objective data and subjective argument. The rubric, origi-nally designed to identify critical thinking for an undergraduate eco-nomics course, proved challenging to apply in its original formbecause of differences in context and task. As such it was modifiedseveral times before and during the initial stages of coding. It wasnecessary to revise the operationalization of some of the categories toaddress these differences as well as improve acceptable inter-rater reli-ability. Simple refinements were added to Level 1 — unilateral descrip-tions and Level 2 — simplistic alternatives/argument. Posts that werenot directly related to organizational behavior topics were coded asLevel 0 — off-the-subject or unscorable. While coding, we also noticedthat students engaged in reflections about the blogging process. Sincethese did not entail subject-specific content, they were also categorizedas Level 0. Under Level 1 — Unilateral Descriptions, we included poststhat simply presented an external resource without comment or ela-boration by the author. As most of our MBA students are workingman-agers with several years of experience, we anticipated that they wouldto use their experiences as data to support and refute arguments andtheory. Level 5— empirical inferencewas expanded to allow for the def-inition of empirical as “originating in or based on observation or experi-ence” (Empirical, n.d.).
The second rubric is based on Kolb's (1984) experiential learningcycle, which was used to answer the second research question. Theauthors designed a rubric to identify the focus of students' reflec-tions in terms of the four stages of the Kolb's cycle: (1) Experience;(2)Observation; (3) Theory; and (4) Experimentation (see Appendix B).
Phase 3 of the cycle originally termed “abstract conceptualization” waschanged to “theory” as noted above to emphasize the focus on theoryin this course. If messages contained more than one focus, all foci wereincluded in the coding. Although Kolb's cycle has been used extensivelyin research and training, we are not aware that the framework wasdesigned to code computer-mediated data.
4. Results
The task required students to initiate one topic and comment ontwo posts submitted by other groups per week. The 65 studentswere expected to make 325 posts and 650 comments across thefive-week period, a total of 975 posts. At the end of 5 weeks, thesestudents initiated 144 blogging topics and provided 399 comments.Overall, the students only posted 543 times contrary to the predicted975 posts, that is, about 44% less than anticipated.
Research question 1. How critically evaluative were the reflectionsof graduate business students when they engage in blogging?
The aim of the reflection analysis was to gain insight into the qual-ity of participants' reflective thinking by determining to what extentthese reflections manifested critical thinking (see Table 1).
The chi-square goodness of fit test was significant (χ2=262.90,df=6, pb0.001), indicating that there were significant differencesin the frequencies of posts by the level of critical thinking. The find-ings indicate that about 6% of the posts were coded as off-task.These were either social, logistical, or technical (Osman & Herring,2007) in nature or were reflections on the blogging process andtheir learning as part of the activity, but not OB-related content. Anexample of such a post would be the following: “I really enjoyed com-municating with you in the last few weeks. And hope if we can keepour communications through web spaces…”.
The standardized residuals showed the frequency in this categoryto be lower than expected as its absolute value was very much largerthan 2.0 (Agresti, 2007). Therefore, the students can be considered asbeing on-task with majority of their posts.
The standardized residuals show that the frequency of postsattributed to Levels 1, 2, and 3 were larger than the expected.Posts coded as Level 1 comprised about 16% of student contribu-tions. These were understood as direct regurgitations of contentknowledge without an argument. However, many of Level 1 postsalso comprised of external resources such as links to articles orvideos in about half of these posts. While Greenlaw and DeLoach's(2003) framework would interpret such posts as not having note-worthy contributions of thought to the discussion, the study resultsindicate that such posts were not of limited value as almost 18% ofthe initial posts were Level 1 contributions that comprised an inter-net resource.
Table 2Reflection rubric based on Kolb's (1984) experiential learning cycle.
Reflection category Totalfrequencyof posts bycategory
Totalpercentageof posts bycategory
Standardizedresiduals
Theory (T) 50 11.8 19.9Experience (D) 43 10.2 12.9Observation (O) 11 2.6 −19.9Experimentation (P) 28 6.6 −2.1Theory/Experience (TD) 112 26.5 81.9Theory/Observation (TO) 60 14.2 29.9Theory/Experimentation (TP) 53 12.6 22.9Theory/Experimentation/Observation(TPO)
12 2.8 −18.1
Theory/Experience/Observation (TDO) 18 4.3 −12.1Theory/Experience/Experimentation(TDP)
21 5.0 −9.1
Theory/Experience/Experimentation/Observation (TDPO)
2 0.5 −28.1
Experience/Observation (DO) 1 0.2 −29.1Experience/Experimentation (DP) 9 2.1 −21.1Experimentation/Observation (PO) 2 0.5 −28.1Total 422 100
Expected frequency of each category=30.1 posts.
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The standardized residuals for Levels 2 and 3 were very muchlarger than that of Level 1, indicating that students largely demon-strated these levels of critical thinking in their posts. About 30% ofthe posts were coded as Level 2 where students gave unsupportedopinions whereas about 26% of the posts showed reasonable argu-mentation and were thus coded as Level 3. Many students attemptedto explain their opinions or explore different, and at times opposing,perspectives on issues. Students often resorted to their own experi-ences in the workplace or their vicarious observations of the work-place in general as a means to support their opinions. Examples ofLevel 2 and 3 posts are as follows:
Level 2: I agree with you nadia, I think perception is very impor-tant skill when it comes to being a good leader. If i'm a leader, Ithink I should see things as they are, I should have an actual per-ception of the situation I'm faced with. A good leader, should makehis/her decision based on basic supported with evidence if any,and not to make his/her decision based on how he/she perceivesand understands these facts, because the leader's perception willbe affected by his/her own values and believes, which I think itmay alter the final decision being taken.Level 3: Team empowerment starts with confidence and encour-aging activities. Employees are trained to play more active rolesduring working hours and after working hours too. They are will-ing to grow as active players rather than been passive players. Bythis way it allows an individual to experience the benefits of syn-ergy, ideas and possession.
As mentioned before, the course, used as the context for thisstudy, revolved mainly around theory and concepts related to organi-zational behavior. As such, the instructor hoped that the blogging ac-tivity would help students more actively engage with what theyconsider as fairly ‘abstract’ ideas at a deeper level e.g. by critiquingthe relevance of the theory. Approximately 14% of the posts werecoded as Level 4, a level that indicates that students built their argu-ments around theories. The standardized residuals showed that thiswas close to, albeit slightly lower than the expected frequency. An ex-ample of such a post would be as follows:
I think this is a very good example of keeping a thought ratherthan following perception. Misunderstanding and conflicts frequentlyhave to do with our perception, because distortions of perception cancause us to misunderstand others, to find them unlikable, to havefalse expectations, to misjudge them, to take things the wrong wayand to project. Also the man in the story undoubtedly has a rich imag-ination, I think it is the way in which he makes use of his capacity toimagine that centrally contribute to his negative conduct toward an-other person. I think everyone of us can recall situations in which ourimagination led us to unfounded assumptions on which we based ourconduct toward other people, although, hopefully, not to the sameextreme degree as the man in the story.
The frequencies of Level 5 and 6 posts were below expected, as in-dicated by the large negative standardized residuals. About 8% of theposts indicated students using empirical data to either support theo-ries or challenge them. Less than 1% of the posts referred to ethical is-sues in management.
Overall, it was observed that the students were largely on taskduring blogging as only 6% of their posts were coded as Level 0.They demonstrated a reasonably high level of critical thinking as70% of their posts comprised some form of argument (Levels 2, 3,and 4). They were, however, weaker in terms of furnishing empiricalsupport for their argument and the consideration of ethical issues, asonly 8% of total posts were coded as Level 5 or 6.
We analyzed the data to determine whether initial posts differedfrom comments regarding the level of critical thinking. However,descriptive statistics as well as chi-square analysis did not reveal anysignificant differences.
Research question 2. In their reflections, to what extent did thesestudents link theory and practice? What phases of Kolb's experientiallearning cycle did these students focus on?
Whereas Greenlaw and DeLoach's (2003) framework wasemployed to examine the quality of students' blog reflections interms of critical thinking, coding posts using a Kolb-based frameworkwas chosen to provide insight into the focus of those reflections — interms of how students linked theory to practice. Sincewe are interestedin student reflections and meaning-making about organizational be-havior topics, posts coded as Levels 0 and 1 according to Greenlawand Deloachwere not considered as relevant to this analysis. Therefore,only 422 of 543 were used for this analysis (see Table 2).
As mentioned earlier, the pre-coding framework entailed fourmain categories: (1) Experience; (2) Observation; (3) Theory; and(4) Experimentation. However, it was noticed that around 70% ofthe 422 relevant posts combined two or more categories. For exam-ple, a student would reflect about a theory covered in class and linkthat to his own experience at work. As such the coding protocol wasexpanded from four categories to 14 as illustrated in Table 2 below.
The chi-square goodness of fit test was significant (χ2=414.22,df=13, pb0.001), indicating that there were significant differencesin the frequencies of posts by the types of their reflection. Accordingto the findings, students seemed to have engaged with theory andconsidered it as a tool to understand their professional lives. Lookingat posts overall, almost 78% of the posts were either based on theoryor referred to theories and concepts covered as part of the argumentpresented (i.e. categories of T, TD, TO, TP, TPO, TDO, TDP, and TDPO).Posts built solely on theory (T) or experience (D) constituted 11.8%and 10.2% of the posts respectively. These were higher than expected,as indicated by their standardized residuals. However, the three larg-est positive standardized residuals were found in the categories of TD,TO, and TP. It was highest for the TD category which denotes that theauthor of the post has based his reflection on connecting theory tohis/her past and current experiences at work at either a personal ororganizational level (27% of overall posts). The second highest positivestandardized residual was for category TO which comprised 14% oftotal posts, indicating that students were also able to make linkagesbetween theory and their general observations about work behavior.Interestingly, studentswere also forthcoming about discussing concrete
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strategies for implementing theory (Category TP) which comprisedabout 13% of total posts.
Negative standardized residuals were first observed in categoriesthat comprised more than two types of argument (i.e. TPO, TDO, TDP,and TDPO). This indicates that students were more comfortable withconsidering theorywith either the categories of experience, observationor experimentation. The consideration of a third or fourth elementwithin one post could be cognitively challenging for them. The frequen-cies of posts were also below expected for the categories of O, DO, DP,and PO. Therefore, it can be seen that the students rarely posted abouttheir experiences, observations or suggested strategies without consid-ering a theoretical element.
A substantial number of posts also entailed reference to observa-tion and experimentation. Observation comprised only a small per-centage of posts exceeding no more than 3%, posts that combinedtheory with general workplace observations constituted approxi-mately 14% of overall posts and comments. When it came to posts fo-cusing on one sole category, experimentation (P) came third totheory with an approximate 7%.
5. Discussion
The study sought to investigate the blogging process of workingMBA students with respect to the quality of their reflection in termsof critical thinking and theory application to professional experiencesoutside the classroom. The results suggest the appropriateness of blog-ging as a tool to encourage reflection for working managers. The find-ings will be discussed with reference to each of the research questionsbelow.
5.1. Quality of reflection in terms of critical thinking
One would expect graduate students and practicing managers tohave substantial ability in critical thinking. Therefore, the expectationwas that some students would engage in higher forms of criticalthinking, reaching at least Level 4 of the Greenlaw and DeLoach(2003) framework. Although the course instructor emphasized theimportance of evidence-based arguments, students had had littlepractice in that area prior to taking the course. Ethical considerations,the focus of Level 6, were alluded to during class, but were not thefocus of the course. As such it was anticipated that very few contribu-tions would fall into Level 5 and 6. To a certain extent, these expecta-tions were met. However, the results also revealed some surprises.
Blog entries coded as off-task only constituted 6% of the data, whichimplies that the students focused very much on content. Of these, onlyabout half were logistical, technical and social in nature. This is very dif-ferent from the results of studies investigating computer-mediated dis-cussions, in which content-focused entries constitute nomore than 40%in case of Koh, Herring, and Hew (2010) or 50% in Osman and Herring(2007). However, it is important tomention here that the groups partic-ipating in the previous two studieswere in the context of classes entire-ly conducted at a distance, and not in a blended setting such as this one.The low number of off-task entries could be interpreted in several ways.It could simply be that students do not need to discuss logistical andtechnical matters within the blogging environment, since there areenough opportunities to sort out any problems during class or via tele-phone. It could also be that the blogging tool (Blogger.com) and taskwere pretty transparent, thereby minimizing the technology problemsfaced by students. However, it might be that the nature of the blog asa publishing tool imposes a level of formality that allows students tofocus on conceptual reflections.
Another surprising finding was students' engagement in reflectionson their blogging experience and its impact on learning. The importanceof developingmetacognitive awareness of learning strategies and processhas long been supported in the educational literature (Commander &Smith, 1996). Looking at students' metacognitive entries gave us some
insight into the positives and negatives of their experience. Most ofthese entries expressed a positive attitude towards blogging. However,one of the prominent concerns was a desire for feedback — particularlyfrom the instructor. This need was reiterated in students' responses to atask evaluation questionnaire at the end of the semester. Contrary tothe expectations of the instructor, students did not seem to value their in-dependence but sought reassurance fromwhat they regarded as themorecompetent authority, namely the instructor. This could partially be due totheir novelty to reflection. This need for instructor input might disappearas students' confidence in their ability to reflect and trust each other'sinput increases. However, it could also be a by-product of students'middle-eastern culture that regards the instructor as the ultimate author-ity in the classroom and values his/her direct feedback (Osman&Herring,2007). Regardless of this particular issue, it seems that providing studentswith opportunities to reflect on the blogging process aswell as conceptualcontent could be an important source of insight to refinedesign principlesfor blogging tasks, but could also present a great opportunity to providestudents with the scaffolding needed for them to take full benefit of theexperience.
Similarly, an almost equal percentage of posts were coded as Level1, about 16%. This result was not anticipated. According to Greenlawand DeLoach's (2003) framework, a post would be coded as Level 1if it did not indicate a noteworthy contribution of thought to the dis-cussion. In addition to indicators previously defined by Greenlaw andDeloach, the authors of this study added providing external resourcessuch as links to articles and videos to the post without further inputby the blogger. Indeed, almost 50% of the Level 1 posts entailed thelatter. Cut and paste external resources were often used by studentsto initiate a blog topic. Almost 18% of the initial posts were Level 1contributions that comprised an internet resource. This aligns withthe findings of previous studies which suggested the importance ofblogs as a venue of students to explore resources beyond materialsdefined by the instructor in class, thereby expanding their knowledgeof topics that interest them (e.g., Huann, John, & Yuen, 2005; Oravec,2003; Williams & Jacobs, 2004). However, it underscores issues suchas students' confusion regarding what to write as a blog entry(Divitini, Haugaløkken, & Morken, 2005) or their low self-efficacy re-garding the worthiness of what they had to share (Williams & Jacobs,2004). Bouldin, Holmes, and Fortenberry (2006) noted that under-graduate participants in their study complained about the difficultythey found generating topics. Students' responses on a questionnaireindicated that 58% wanted the instructor to present them with dis-cussion questions. To overcome this barrier, the instructor introduced“bloggable questions” which facilitated the blogging of some, butwere ignored by other students who preferred to come up withtheir own topics. This issue again suggests that the course facilitatormight need to play a more active role in scaffolding struggling stu-dents, at least at the beginning.
About 30% of the posts were coded as Level 2. Posts were coded assuch when students gave opinions without substantiating them witha logical argument. This result did not come as a surprise to the firstauthor, who often faced the same behavior in class discussions and onexams. However, about 26% of the posts did show reasonable argumen-tation. Many students attempted to explain their opinions or/and ex-plore different, and at times opposing, perspectives on issue. Studentsoften resorted to their own experiences or their vicarious observationsof the workplace to support their opinions. As mentioned before, thecourse, used as the context for this study, revolved mainly around the-ory and concepts related to organizational behavior. As such, the in-structor hoped that the blogging activity would help students moreactively engage with what they consider as fairly ‘abstract’ and tosome extent ‘impractical’ ideas at a deeper level. However, a previousstudy by the first author (Osman &Duffy, 2010) suggested that theoriesare often not actively taken up by students, and often remain detachedareas of knowledge, that learners do not integrate or relate to theirown experiences and decision-making. As such, the finding that
29G. Osman, J.H.L. Koh / Internet and Higher Education 16 (2013) 23–31
approximately 14% of the posts were coded as Level 4, a level that indi-cates that students built their arguments around theories, was consid-ered a positive outcome. Even more surprisingly positive were thefindings for Level 5. About 8% of the students used empirical data toeither support theories or challenge them. This behavior was rarelywitnessed in class, but was used in the blogs. As anticipated, very fewreferences were made in posts to the ethical dimensions for issuesdiscussed in the blogs, namely less than 1% of the posts since ethicalconsiderations are rarely the focus of management education in theEgyptian context.
5.2. Focus of reflections in terms of Kolb's experiential learning cycle
Numerous studies have suggested the challenge facing the educa-tion of practicing managers in terms of simultaneously acknowledgingacademic rigor and practice, theory and experience (e.g. Attle & Baker,2007). The findings of the current study seem to imply that bridgingthis divide is possible. Moreover, introducing Kolb's experiential learn-ing cycle to practicing management students and encouraging them toaddress the different phases of the cycle in their reflective blogs mighthave been an appropriate tool to resolve the divide between historicallycontradictory modes in management education.
Pfeffer and Fong (2002) pointed out the difficulty of encouragingstudent managers to embrace theory as part of their continuing edu-cation. However, the participants of this study did not seem to sharethat adversarial attitude towards theory. Nearly 12% of all posts fo-cused solely on theory, while approximately 77% of their reflectionsinvolved some reference to theory. This comfort with theory couldhave been due to students' cultural background. The Egyptian educa-tional system underscores the importance of abstract conceptualiza-tion and theory. Acknowledging learners' experiences and contextsis hardly part of a typical Egyptian educational experience. In thatsense, one could say that students were in their comfort zone. More-over, the course was largely theory-based. However, the instructoremphasized the importance of bridging the gap between the abstractconcepts covered in class and their work experiences and practice.The findings seem to suggest that students were able to make thoselinkages. Sixty-five percent of students' posts comprised reflectionsconnecting theory to their professional experiences and their obser-vations of the work environments. However, it was noticed thatposts were not very comprehensive in nature; posts that comprisedmore than two categories (i.e. TPO, TDO, TDP, and TDPO) were lessfrequent. Itmight have been that the consideration of three ormore cat-egories was challenging to the students. It could also be that studentssimply need to be prompted in order to remember addressing all fourphases of the cycle, a behavior that is not guaranteed (Kolb & Kolb,2005).When it came to categories that did not entail theories, contribu-tions were much lower. The frequencies of posts were also belowexpected for the categories of O, DO, DP, and PO. Therefore, it can beseen that the students rarely posted about their experiences, observa-tions or suggested strategies without considering a theoretical element.It could be that students regarded that their experiences, observations,experiments and plans alone as insufficient in an academic context.
Groups differed in the focus and quality of their reflections. Somegroups seemed to do much better than others in terms linking theoryand practice and the extent to which their reflections where critical.This variation in the content and quality of blogs might have a num-ber of interpretations. However, it could be that students who didwell in the blogs were already better at reflection than those whodid worse. It might also be that blogging is sufficient to promote bet-ter reflections with some students but not with others. It could bethat some students need more scaffolding to bridge the gap betweenwhere they are now and where they need to be. An experimentalstudy by Xie et al. (2008) supported the role of blogging as a vehicleto encourage more critical reflection. However, future research couldexplore the different interpretations. Further studies could also
explore the impact of group composition and member selection onthe focus and quality of student reflections.
6. Conclusions
Previous research on blogging in post-secondary contexts waslargely limited to self-report and anecdotal evidence to support thepotential of blogs as a tool to promote reflection and critical thinking.The current study addressed this gap in the literature by empiricallyexamining the quality of blogs using the rubrics and content analysistechniques to triangulate previous results with more objective mea-sures. It also examined the use of blogging as a medium to close thedivide between theory and practice in practitioner-oriented coursesthat have not traditionally used reflection as an instructional method.The findings lend empirical support for the suitability of blogs as amedium for collaborative reflection, deeper thinking and theory–practice linkages. However, the results also suggested ample roomfor improvement. It seems that students could reach more sophisti-cated thinking levels with appropriate scaffolding.
6.1. Limitations and future directions
In terms of task design, one of the limitations for the current studywas the short-duration allocated to the blogging task and the fact thatit was assigned during the second half of a ten-week course. Althoughmany students seemed to immediately engage in the activity, had noproblems interacting with the technology or sharing their ideas onthe blogs, this was not the case for everyone. The instructor for theclass dedicated an hour to discuss the purpose of the task, explainthe meaning of reflection, and give a brief introduction. More supportmight have been needed because some students took about threeweeks to resolve their technology issues. Many students expressedinitial hesitation to engage in collaborative reflection due to lack of fa-miliarity, fear of criticism, or simply because they did not believe inthe value of such an activity. With time, most of these students over-came their concerns. However, some never really did. We believe thatthese time constraints and their byproducts probably had a negativeimpact on the level of contribution and the quality of reflections.Reflection does not come naturally for most; it is a skill that needsto be developed through engagement in the activity, scaffolding, andfeedback. Accordingly, longitudinal studies that examine students'collaborative reflections over longer durations might give importantinsights about how to develop the skills andwhat to expect fromnoviceas well as more advanced reflective practitioners.
Reflection has a substantially long tradition in the areas of teacherand medical education. Numerous frameworks are being used by re-searchers to investigate the focus and quality of such reflections inthese specific disciplines (e.g., Loving et al., 2007). Reflection as partof manager professional development is, however, a relatively newendeavor, even though its been proposed by David Kolb (1984) longago. As such, there are no established frameworks to investigate re-flections for such audiences. This study could be considered as oneof the first attempts to address this gap. Rather than use genericframeworks to examine students' blog postings, we tried to use anal-ysis tools that are specific to the context. Our first framework wasGreenlaw and DeLoach (2003), a framework that was devised to ex-amine critical thinking in undergraduate economics courses(DeLoach & Greenlaw, 2003), but was also used to analyze the discus-sions of undergraduate education students (Osman & Duffy, 2010).However, it was decided early in the coding process that the indica-tors needed to be adapted to address the uniqueness of practitionerinteractions. Nevertheless, this framework only addressed the aspectof critical thinking in students' reflections. The relationship betweencritical thinking and students' reflection are outside the scope ofthis study and is an area that could be examined more criticallyin future studies both qualitatively and statistically. The second
(continued)
Level Student position
Level 3: basicanalysis (3)
They make a serious attempt to analyze an argumentor competing arguments and evaluate it/them withevidence• Appeal to a recognized (appropriate) authoritythat does not constitute theory
• Casual observation, anecdotal, datum (vs. data)that is used to support/refute an argument.
• Assertions with explicit evidence offered; or areasoned challenge of another's assertion butwithout a clear logical framework
• A singular, Socratic-style question• Often list numerous factors as evidence but do notintegrate them within a logical framework
• No clear conclusion or choice between alternativesis made; e.g., when pressed for the “best”explanation, they respond that bothare equally valid
Level 4: theoreticalinference (4)
• They employ the use of … theory to make a cohesiveargument
• Theoretical Logical statements based on thediscipline's accepted model/school(s) of thought
• Identify assumptions• Challenge a key assumption of another's theory• A series of logical, Socratic-style questions
Level 5: empiricalinference (5)
Add to the level of sophistication by introducingempirical evidence to strengthen theirtheoretical argument• Use appropriate, historical data to “test” thevalidity of an argument
• Use data to reach a clear conclusion or to choosebetween alternative theories
• Require at least an implicit logical framework• Challenge the validity of another's empiricalmeasure/evidence
• Use data that has been formally or systematicallycollected.
Level 6: mergingvalues withanalysis (6)
They are able to move beyond objective analysis toincorporate subjective interests• They may argue that although there is (positive)evidence to validate the use of a particular policy,there are other (normative) consequences thatmust be considered
• They may select a particular policy on somenormative basis, from several which have positiveevidence to support them.
⁎ Bold text marks additions or modifications to the original framework.
Appendix A (continued)
30 G. Osman, J.H.L. Koh / Internet and Higher Education 16 (2013) 23–31
framework utilized was based on Kolb's (1984) experiential learningcycle. Long-established within the field of management education,Kolb's (1984) theory was used to guide the design of the task aswell as establish the value and legitimacy of such a task to practicingmanagers taking part in this study. An analysis framework was de-vised to reflect the different phases of the Kolb's cycle, but categorieswere further expanded to identify connections made by bloggers tolink different elements of the cycle. More research is needed to fur-ther develop and re-test these frameworks for similar contexts aswell as other practitioner-led courses.
6.2. Guidelines for designing blogging tasks to facilitate reflective practice
From the results of this study, several guidelines for the design ofblogging tasks can be derived:
1. Explain the importance of reflection a vehicle for learning and con-tinued professional development.
2. Provide different forms of scaffolding. Many students are new toreflection and critical thinking as a more formal activity. In addi-tion to giving them a framework and guidelines to inform their re-flections, examples that illustrate quality reflection and criticalthinking might be necessary. Students in this context seemed toespecially need help with building theory based arguments, evalu-ating theories, and addressing ethical concerns for business issues.
3. Give prompts to encourage reflections. Some students are oftenapprehensive about initiating reflections.
4. Promote reflection and critical thinking over longer durations. Areflection task that extends for part of the semester might not besufficient to adequately develop students' reflective and criticalthinking skills.
5. Relate students' reflections to class topic so that students see thevalue of reflection as an integral and legitimate ingredient oflearning.
6. Provide technical orientation at the beginning of the session. Al-though we assume that our students are tech savvy, they mightnot be.
Appendix A
Greenlaw and DeLoach's (2003) critical thinking framework⁎.
Level Student position
Level 0(0)
Off-the-subject or otherwise unscorable
Level 1: unilateraldescriptions (1)
Students paraphrase information, theyrepeat and restate the question• Define terms• Simply repeat information• Simple “good” or “bad” statements• Add little or nothing new to the issue or question• Present a resource without further commentary• Regurgitate concepts/theory covered in classwithout additions
Level 2: simplisticalternatives /argument (2)
They take a side, they do not explore otheralternatives, they make unsupported assertions,they make simplistic arguments• An assertion, without evidence, often in the formof a question that modestly advances thinking;often synonymous with getting the discussionback on track
• Challenge an assertion but without evidence• Facts (beyond defining terms) relevant to thediscussion but no argument, per se
• Simple explanations, e.g., giving an example butdoes not use it to support the argument
• Cite simple rules, “laws” as proof• Do not address conflicts with opposing views or donot explore them
Appendix B
Reflection rubric based on Kolb's experiential learning cycle.
Learning cyclestage
Correspondingcategory
Indicators
Concrete experience Experience (D) ▪ Reflecting on actual experiencesthat they or their companieswent through
Reflective observation Observation (O) ▪ Reflecting on generalobservationsthat do not refer to personalexperiences, theory, or personalplans or experiments
Abstractconceptualization
Theory (TH) ▪ Reflecting on abstract theoryor concepts
Activeexperimentation
Experimentation(P)
▪ Reflecting on actual experimentsthat students engaged in aftercovering concepts in class orreflecting on plans forsuch experiments
31G. Osman, J.H.L. Koh / Internet and Higher Education 16 (2013) 23–31
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