 Title of the assessment: Reflective Portfolio on ‘’Critical evaluation on academic skills

and reflection on self- development for master level study’’

 Student Name and Number:
 Module Code:
 Teaching Tutor:
 Table of content

1. Introduction
2. Understanding critical self-reflection
3. The role of critical self-reflection at my master’s level education
4. Importance of critical self-reflection and academic skills evaluation
5. Literature supporting critical evaluation on academic skills and reflection on self-
development for master level study
6. Time Management
7. Conclusion
8. References
Introduction:
This report would emphasise on critical self-reflection as an important transitional skill that
would help me to develop and get benefits from it during my master level studies.
Development begins with the discussion and for being self-efficient, one needs to work upon
different transition points such as pre-transition, shock and adjustment and progression. In this
report, a number of strategies have been discussed which can help me to develop my reflective
skills while pursuing my masters level education. Various challenges are also identified that
come in the way on self-reflection.

Understanding critical self-reflection:

Critical self-reflection plays an important role in developing higher-order thinking skills and
achieve more in less time. Self-reflection can also be termed as self-monitoring, reflection in
action and so on. Generally, a confusion is created between reflection and self-reflection.
Reflection is basically any course of action that is based upon the current beliefs or knowledge
which is supported by the literature in the past whereas, critical self-reflection is a process in
which the focus is given on identifying own thoughts and assumptions, own knowledge
perspective and inter-personal skills.

Level 7 skills to obtain the master level knowledge contains critically analysing, synthesizing and
practicing the knowledge on real time problems helps in analysing the academic skills and
critically evaluating the abilities of the student at master’s level. For obtaining the level 7 skills, I
must prepare myself with the abilities mentioned below:

 Make myself able to deal with the complexities and applying the theoretical knowledge
in to practical life.
 Make the correct judgements with full confidence and keep conclusions clear and
concise without any fear.
 Work on self-directing abilities to solve the complex issues.
 Taking own initiative and having personal responsibility for sorting out the issues at
professional front.
 Make myself aware of professionalism and Include self-reflection.

The role of critical self-reflection at my master’s level education:

As per the literary publications, we can conclude that self-reflection could help students in
three ways. First move is when a student steps out of the formal schooling and enters the
university level education where he has to become more self-reliable instead of getting proper
instructor-based learning. One has to dive deep in order to achieve better results. This is the
second stage where a student has to become critically more reflective and learn a lot of things.
Now, till this time the student has entered the surface learning phase, the next comes up is
understanding the new concepts, making sense and identifying meanings of the next level
learnings by critically analysing own personality. Here, the new concepts are related to the
previously learnt concepts and a need arises to explore the differences and justify the
meanings.

Importance of critical self-reflection and academic skills evaluation:

Emphasis on academic skills and critical self-reflection should be laid on as a student here
enters the complex level of university education. Initially this transitional phase has some
positive impacts such as excitement to enter a new world and some negative impacts such as
entering a world where everyone is unknown.

Literature supporting critical evaluation on academic skills and reflection on self-

development for master level study:

We can get a lot of literature that helps in critically evaluating the academic skills and putting
reflection on self-development. Some of them are mentioned below:

Learning journals: These are the written records that are found in the literary records as
students create these on the basis of knowledge that they gain while pursuing their higher-level
studies, interacting with their tutors and peer group. These journals are also considered as
reflective journals as they help the students to critically review themselves at their academic
level as well as the inter-personal level.

McCrindle and Christensen (1995) did a research on forty undergraduates and found that
learning journals and reflective journals have an important effect on the cognitive skills and the
academic performance of the students.

Peer review: Peer review can be considered as an important tool for academic learning and
critical self-reflection. Getting regular feedback from the peer group and sharing knowledge
with each other helps is critically evaluating own knowledge and concepts. This puts emphasis
on own strengths, weaknesses and other areas of improvement. Self-monitoring exercises help
in improving the performance

Dochy F, Segers M and Sluijsmans D (1999) researched on the use of self-, peer and co-
assessment in higher education: a review. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education,
24(3), pp.331-351.They found it really impressive and worthy in the development of inter-
personal, cognitive, communicative skills and many more and also it has a great influence on
self-assessment.

Student portfolios: These are kept in records in universities in order to keep a track of student’s
performance, growth and development. These help the future students to progress in
academics, problem solving, teamwork and communicating with each other.

While pursuing my master’s education, I am using all the resources mentioned above. After
critically analysing myself, I found that I need to work on the skills mentioned below:
  Building power within and influencing others
 Setting future goals
 Improving my communication skills
 Executing each and every task assigned

Identifying right resources and critical reading also helps in improving the skills and evaluating
one’s own personality and abilities. Critical reading refers to attaining knowledge through
different processes, queries, problem situations and theories which help the learner to get
more comprehensive approach and clarity of the topic. The literature which is being read
should be felt, it should be read slowly so that each and every phrase is evaluated and provides
a useful outcome.

Not only reading the journals, going through literature helps in attaining knowledge but also
writing the paragraphs and creating arguments helps in development of skills as well as
critically analysing own strengths and weaknesses. The main purpose of writing a critical
paragraph is to let the reader understand the concepts clearly, make them able to solve the
problem-based queries and improve from within.

A Master's degree is moving a step forward from undergraduate studies to the next level. It's
more complicated in comparison to the undergraduate studies, and found more difficult in a
variety of ways. Master's level work needs students to acquire new technical abilities and also a
more critical and deep examination of advanced concepts and methodologies. It is a
postgraduate academic certification that is awarded to the students who have completed the
graduation level studies and showed a high level of skills in a specific field of study or area of
professional practice.

Graduate students just after completing their graduation are expected to seek out and get
adequate training and evaluation for the instructional positions they are aspire to achieve in
their future. They need to go through the teaching and training opportunities that are relevant
to their professional goals and that improve teaching to a variety of learners and demographics,
to the extent applicable. While studying at master’s level, a student needs to provide complete,
timely, honest, and insightful feedback to self in order to improve own inter-personal skill, keep
up to speed on the problems and literature surrounding the candidate's research provide
dependable and well-informed advice on all aspects of good research methodology. A master's
degree is a high-level education that is generally based on research and methodologies. In
terms of style and organization, the master's degrees are also similar to undergraduate degrees
but have a complex area of problems to sort out. Lectures, seminars, and practical assignments
help in assessing self-performance and also tutors can evaluate the progress of students based
on these aspects. Other ways to assess the performance are exams, essays, dissertations, and
group projects or discussions.

The other study techniques or resources that help master level students cover topics such as
active listening, reading comprehension, note taking, stress management, time management,
testing, and memorizing and also learning through various audio-visual tools. Also, after joining
the master level studies, students need to work on complex problem solving, critical thinking,
creativity, people management, and emotional in order to achieve better job opportunities in
the future.

These are the five time-management skills that should be developed by master students so that
they can better equip themselves to make the correct use of each and every second of their
precious time. It is the best practice to keep track of everything by maintaining a planner,
noting the facts about the time usage, instead of working harder one should work smarter,
don't take on more than you can handle just work up to your strength, and also while studying,
one should make efforts to live a healthy lifestyle and have proper well being.

As per Hmelo-Silver (2004) while a tutor can support self-reflection in problem-based learning,
other techniques may also be helpful. One approach to improving self-reflection is through the
use of reflection journals.

Critical analysis of academic skills basically demonstrates the critically thinking ability of the
student. It can be done on the various topics such as a piece of art, any TV programme, social or
political agenda, business policy and all. While critically analysing the master’s level students for
skill development, all the focus should be pointed out on both the strengths and weaknesses so
that the strengths could be used to improvise the abilities and weaknesses could be worked
upon to become a better academician.

Time Management:
To identify the skill gap while entering the master’s level and completing the graduate level, I
would look after the deficiencies which can halter my performance due to lack of some
mandatory skills. I would try to bridge the gaps by using all the above-mentioned methods such
as going through literature, reading journals, writing critical essays, peer discussions etc. If I
would make myself able to overcome these deficiencies, it would be fruitful in the coming
future. To identify my skill gap, I would critically analyse myself. I would continuously keep a
check on my knowledge part. I’ll use the below mentioned table to fill the skill gaps:

Time frame Platform Engagement level

First quarter Literature I would engage myself in
acquiring more and more
knowledge in order to get
myself updated for the
master’s level studies
Second quarter Reading and writing journals I would grasp more and more
knowledge by reading
journals and once done with
that I would try to express
my thoughts by writing the
same.
 Third quarter Peer debates and discussions By this time, I would be in a
much better condition to
have a healthy discussion
with the peer group and
share my views and
thoughts. This could also help
in showing my confidence
level.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, a master’s student in any field should read actively, take notes, pay attention to
trouble areas, review the notes on a regular basis and move them to Word or Google Docs, and
mention other texts, including music or art, that helps to go through them whenever required.
Learning is a gift of god. God gave learning sense to all the living beings. It is one’s notion
whether he needs to learn or not. Learning helps in improving skills. One should be willing to
learn new things in order to fill the skill gaps and critically analyse own abilities. Once the
critical analysis of own inter-personal skills is done, one can get a better understanding of the
problem-solving techniques, deal with the complexities of the world and present own self in a
better way. While entering the master’s level academic skills, I’ll work upon all the skill gaps I
have and would try to overcome them to present myself in a better way.

References:
Dochy F, Segers M and Sluijsmans D (1999) The use of self-, peer and co-assessment in higher
education: a review. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 24(3), pp.331-351.

Hmelo-Silver CE. Problem-based learning: What and how do students learn? Educational

Psychology Review. 2004;16(3):235–266. doi: 10.1023/B:EDPR.0000034022.16470.f3. 

Cohen J, Cohen P. Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behaviorial

sciences. 2. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1983

Lew, M. D. N., & Schmidt, H. G. (2007). Reflecting on practice: The use of journals at a problem-

based learning school in Singapore. Poster presented at the 2nd international symposium on
PBL: Reinventing PBL, Singapore. Paper presented at the Reinventing PBL, Singapore.