Assessing and Increasing Graduate Students’ Use of Reflective Practices: An Empirical Study

The Ignatian Pedagogy Paradigm (IPP) has primarily been conceptualized and applied with regards to high school and undergraduate education. However graduate students constitute one-third of the total enrollment at Jesuit universities in the United States. This article describes an initiative to infuse one aspect of the IPP – namely, reflection – into the curricula of three graduate programs, and the development of a brief self-report measure of reflective practices. Self-report data collected from 130 graduate students in three human services programs (pastoral counseling, psychology, and speech/language pathology) indicated that their understanding and use of reflection as a pedagogical tool increased significantly during their first year in their respective programs. This article discusses future plans to continue infusing the IPP into graduate curricula