Rubrics for Reflective Learning Journals: A Note on Assessment Concepts

Reflective Learning Journals are used to engage students in the learning process. To motivate students to complete the Reflective Learning Journal it is common practice to allocate marks and it is in this area that problems arise. To address the problems rubrics have been used however, most rubrics are based on assigning marks to very straightforward learning objectives embedded in almost every major assignment, and this is not so easy when evaluating/assessing the writing of a reflective journal. Deriving a rubric to suit a reflective learning journal requires attention to writing analytics rather than traditional learning outcomes. This paper presents a rubric developed from the literature on written self-reflection textual analytics. The approach provides a formula driven method as an objective means to alleviate any perception of subjectivity.