Understanding management students' reflective practice through blogging

The paper discusses the results of a study on the use of blogging to encourage students to engage in the making 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 these blogs were analyzed using content analysis and chi-square analysis. The findings point to the potential of blogs as a tool for reflection and learning in practitioner-oriented courses. The participants demonstrated a reasonably high level of critical thinking and were able to link theory to their experiences and observations in the work place. The implications of these results for the design of blogging tasks are discussed.

► We study reflective practice through blogging in practitioner-oriented contexts.
► We use content analysis to examine critical thinking and focus of reflective blogs.
► The findings support using blogs for reflection in practitioner-oriented courses.
► Learners used reasonable levels of critical thinking and theory-practice linkages.
► We discuss the implication of these results for the design of blogging tasks.