A Reflective Lens: Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice | Page 40

Use of Reflective Practice in Developing Students’ Listening and
Ensemble Performing Skills in Guitar Ensemble Co-Curricular Activity

Literature Review

The ability to step back from events to evaluate the
effectiveness of actions, make judgements, exercise
responsible decision-making, and explore possible
alternatives, are important skills for students to develop.
The results of the findings provided some evidence for the
development and acquisition of soft skills, in line with 21CC.
While reflection engages students in a metacognitive
thinking process (Burwell, 2005), it also enables them to
reconstruct their experiences and deepen their reflection.
It is a vehicle whereby students can articulate their
thinking skills that go beyond being mere knowledgebased and practice-based. This critical thinking skill makes
practice more efficient because when musicians possess
a certain amount of metacognition about their practice,
they can think about what they need to do in order to
improve (Parncutt, 2007). According to Bolton (2005), this
level of self-evaluation is also recognised as part of the
development of an independent learner.
One approach for facilitating reflective process is through the
use of the learner journal, which is an accumulation of material
based on the writer’s process of reflection (Moon, 1999).
Burnard and Hennessy (2009) also noted that journaling is an
approach to providing a platform that stimulates reflection
as it not only allows the capturing of thinking, but it also
helps the writer to connect knowledge and ideas. Journaling
is also a vehicle used for logical extension of the types of
thinking in class (Knowlton, 2013).
Learning seems to be enhanced during journaling when
students develop a greater awareness of their own thinking
and monitor their learning progress. This has the potential
to allow students to set realistic learning targets for their
own development. It is generally recognised that the journal
provides a focusing point in encouraging the writer to make
sense of information about the subject matter (Burnard &
Hennessy, 2009). In the study by Latukefu (2009), the student
participants highlighted that writing assisted them in thinking
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