Effects of Reflective Thinking in the Process of Designing Software on Students’ Learning Performances

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of reflective thinking effects in the process of designing software on students’ learning performances. The study contends that reflective thinking is a useful teaching strategy to improve learning performance among lower achieving students. Participants were students from two groups: Higher achieving students were the control group, and lower achieving students were the experimental group. The experimental group students wrote weekly diaries demonstrating reflective thinking in the processes of designing software. The study’s results show the evaluation scores of the two groups of students’ software designs were comparable. The abilities of the experimental group to comment on a design improved. This shows that a reflective thinking strategy did have positive effect on improving lower achieving students’ learning performances, especially in the process of software design. Discussion of the results and suggestions for future study appear at the end of this study.