Why do students (not) reflect in Higher Education?

The last decade has seen repeated calls for higher education in general, and management education in particular, to develop more critical, more reflective students. Students, thus, need to develop into ‘reflective practitioners’, who can be characterised as performers pondering what they are doing while they are doing it. This notion is also called ‘reflection-in-action’. While society and the labour market demand such ‘reflective practitioners’, there is little empirical research regarding the effectiveness of specific interventions to develop the necessary reflective skills. Thus, the SNF-funded study planned aims to empirically test different interventions regarding their effectiveness in the promotion of the reflection skills students need to become ‘reflective practitioners’. The SNF study will be conducted in a quasi-experimental design, implementing and testing interventions that target students’ attitudes towards reflection as well as their skills (for instance, through solving business dilemmas). The sample consists of various European various business schools (e.g. University of St. Gallen, Stockholm School of Economics, University of Cologne). In order to prepare a feasible and robust research design for the SNF application, the GFF funding aims at developing the necessary instruments for conducting the main study (i.e. valid indicators to measure students’ reflection capabilities). Our research contributes to the theory of reflection by providing empirical evidence on how to foster reflection in management education. At the same time, the research addresses a practical problem and can thus contribute to the design of reflection-oriented courses and curricula at business schools.