Development of a Refined Rubric for Investigating Transformative Learning in Non-Majors’ STEM Reflective Writing

Introductory STEM courses have the potential to promote new perspectives and encourage students’ sense of personal responsibility. This deep, progressive shift in understanding oneself with respect to the content is the hallmark of transformative learning, but how do we know if our courses have facilitated such growth? Reflective writing can deepen disciplinary understanding and shape students’ habits of mind, thus facilitating transformative learning. Our study seeks to test this conceptual framework through an analysis of reflective writing in an introductory environmental science course serving mostly non-STEM majors. We assessed students’ reflections using a validated rubric and evaluated the utility of a revised version tailored to our demographic. While most students did not reach critical reflection, the revised rubric highlights two novel insights. First, students can forge personal connections and gain deeper perspectives on the content despite initial misconceptions. In addition, without intermediate levels built into the revised rubric, students’ incremental progress may be invisible to evaluators. Our findings emphasize the value of reflective writing in nurturing students’ growing content knowledge and personal connection to science content. Such nuance is important to recognize and nourish in non-STEM majors, for whom developing a personal connection to content may help prevent future disengagement.