Language and cultural considerations when implementing innovative approaches to assessments: Reflective learning journals and the perception of non-English speaking students

Abstract

There is a call for hospitality educators to incorporate more reflective and critical thinking in curriculum and assessment. This paper explores if non-English speaking students, chiefly from a Confucian heritage background, in an English delivery hospitality management degree course respond to and engage differently to students who have English as their first language, when they undertook a reflective learning journal as an assessment for a hospitality law subject. The hospitality literature argues that Asian students have more reflective learning styles than their Western counterparts who prefer active learning styles. Both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies were used to collect and analyse data. The findings show that international students found some aspects of the learning journal more problematic such as writing in the first person, fewer rules and understanding the process and expectations of the assessment. These students also found the reflective and critical thinking components more difficult. The paper concludes that reflection required in a reflective learning journal is different to a reflective learning style and more research is required.