SCIENCE STUDENT REFLECTION ON INDIGENOUS CULTURAL COMPETENCY LEARNING

Abstract

Teaching Indigenous cultural competency has become imperative in recognising and respecting Indigenous people and their culture in the Western world (Page, Trugett, & Bodkin-Andrews, 2019). A sustainable approach to education and knowledge must ensure all knowledges are valued and the knowledge systems behind the longer surviving cultures in the world deserve significant attention. Through written reflections, this investigation analysed the learnt cultural competency of 29 students enrolled in an Indigenous science unit at Monash University. The data was qualitatively analysed using NVivo 12 to produce a code book as a summary of recurring reflection themes. Each reflection was isolated into three sections: Initial reaction, perception and plans. Students were able to deeply reflect and process their cultural competency through the evaluation of what they were taught, identification of gaps in their prior knowledge and planning to seek further information to overcome incompetence. The students were able to emotively respond, process and engage with the content which highlighted a deeper level of processing and reflexivity. REFERENCE Page, S., Trugett, M., & Bodkin-Andrews, G. (2019). Creating a degree-focused pedagogical framework to guide Indigenous graduate attributes curriculum development. Higher Education, 78, 1-15.