Master's-level counseling students' perceptions of journaling as a tool for developing reflective thinking and self-awareness

Abstract

Counselor educators are invested in helping students develop reflective thinking skills and increasing self-awareness, and often assign journals as a means of doing so. While much has been written about the potential benefits of journaling for counseling students, less is known about whether students themselves view this purportedly learner-centered practice as beneficial. Thus, the purpose of this study was to generate a phenomenological description of how master's-level counseling students perceive journaling assignments, including whether they believe journaling results in the outcomes their instructors expect. This study explored the phenomenological experiences and writings of four counseling students in a CACREP-accredited program at a midsized public Midwestern university who kept a journal during an addictions counseling course in the summer of 2013.