Assessment of Reflection Abilities of Maritime Students Maritime Education and Training

Abstract

We share the instruments for assessment the reflective abilities of the maritime students. In the research we analyze the reflection component of communicative activity and correlation of reflective thinking and risk assessment. The group of participants of the research was 80 students of Navigation Department.  Methods we used are the author’s questionnaire; the author's method of determining the development of abilities for reflection and introspection; the method of evaluation “emotional intelligence” by Hall; the test “Readiness to risk” by G. Schubert. The results of the research show that maritime students demonstrate a high level of ability to reflect on self-analyses, a middle ability to introspection, and a low ability to reflect on communication and emotions. Students mostly demonstrate attitudinal motivation, but active motivation needs correction, respondents overestimate their abilities to manage other people’s emotions and overestimate their communication skills, most of the respondents do not overestimate their failures and successes therefore cannot feedback their learning outcomes. We state that the practical activity of the students in a professional environment has a positive impact on the development of reflection abilities.  We offer two author’s tests which can be used by maritime lecturers to assess the students’ ability for reflection with the purpose of improvement education process.