Graduate student perceptions of eportfolios: Uses for reflection, development, and assessment

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Highlights

  • Eportfolios can be a valuable developmental and assessment experience.

  • Students value the ability to show their technological skills and competencies.

  • Students value eportfolios for reflection and sharing of their work.

  • Technical support is a key component of successful eportfolio creation.

  • Eportfolio process may be improved by explicit emphasis on reflection.

Abstract

While there is discussion of eportfolios in many fields in higher education, there is little literature on eportfolios in the helping professions fields of school counselor and school psychology education. This study sought to explore graduate students' perceptions of the value of creating eportfolios and ways of improving the eportfolio process. Overall, the students found the construction of their eportfolios to be useful in reflecting on their competencies and in gaining confidence in using technology. The students also valued the hands-on training sessions, peer review opportunities and model portfolios, and technological skills built by creating the eportfolios, which they stated may be useful in job searches. Suggestions for improving the eportfolio process for future students include having all students only create eportfolios, being more explicit about reflection, and meeting with students earlier to expose them to the eportfolio platform in order to lessen technology anxiety and increase time for reflection.

Introduction

Many disciplines and professions have long used physical portfolios for assessment, personal development, career searches, and to showcase work (Bartlett, 2006, Boes et al., 2001, James and Greenwalt, 2001, Wang, 2010). Many of these disciplines and professions have embraced the shift to eportfolios, also known as electronic or digital portfolios, as a way to more easily share, update, and collaboratively share the contents of the portfolios (James and Greenwalt, 2001, Lin, 2008). Previous studies have explored student perceptions of the value of eportfolios (Kabilan and Khan, 2012, Lin, 2008), instructors' perceptions of eportfolios (Fong et al., 2014), and how eportfolios can contribute to student self-efficacy, creation of communities of practice, and authentic assessment practices (Shepherd and Bolliger, 2011, Tang and Lam, 2014, Wang, 2010). In many disciplines and fields, the use of eportfolios has gained much attention over the past few years, with the concurrent rise in interest in online teaching and learning. This interest in eportfolios is unsurprising given the increased interest in online learning and using online technologies in higher education and in the K-12 environment. Helping professionals (i.e., school counselors and school psychologists) work within the K-12 environment and need to be current on online learning technologies and tech savvy themselves to be able to succeed as professionals. It would seem logical then to look into using eportfolios in education of students in helping professions as eportfolios have been embraced by other fields as ways of increasing technology skills and showcasing work (Bartlett, 2006, Kabilan and Khan, 2012, Yu, 2012). However currently, although there is some literature on portfolios more generally (Curry and Lambie, 2007, Murphy and Kaffenberger, 2007, Sink, 2009), there is a dearth of eportfolio research in the fields that make up the helping professions. This is an important gap to fill to determine the value of eportfolios to the professional development and technological development of students in helping professions, especially with the drive for evidence and result-based practice (Carlson & Yohon, 2008).

In other fields, eportfolios have continued to gain traction and there is a lively discourse in the literature about the best practices, uses, and value of eportfolios, as well as numerous case studies (Pelliccione and Raison, 2009, Shepherd and Bolliger, 2011). Three main themes emerge from these previous studies: using eportfolios for summative assessment (Cobia et al., 2005), as formative developmental process tools (Cheng and Chau, 2013, Flanigan and Amirian, 2006), and as important tools for job searches (Boes et al., 2001, Yu, 2012). Yu's (2012) study of human resource managers showed that recruiters were positive about viewing eportfolios submitted by job applicants as a way of gauging performance and abilities, although Yu (2012) noted that eportfolios still seem to be in their nascent usage in job searching. Eportfolios are obviously not a panacea for learning and can take much time and knowledge on the part of the instructors to implement successfully (Vernazza et al., 2011). For full engagement with eportfolios, studies have shown that students need technological guidance as well as an understanding of the goals/outcomes for the eportfolios in order to help the eportfolio transcend merely as being a collection of documents (Oner & Adadan, 2011).

Eportfolios are being used and extensively studied in many professional disciplines (Bartlett, 2006, Okoro et al., 2011, Shepherd and Bolliger, 2011, Wang, 2010) as both formative and summative teaching and learning devices that are able to be translated to career development tools and into documents capturing evolving professional competence. However, there is very little published literature for helping professions regarding pathways for using eportfolios for professional development (Carlson & Yohon, 2008) and no known research studies. This multi-year study, encompassing three cohorts of students seeks to contribute to the nascent literature of eportfolios in the helping professions and to the larger discourse on eportfolios in higher education. The study sought to explore students' perceptions of the value of creating eportfolios, their potential uses in job searches, and ways of improving the experience for future cohorts.

Section snippets

Setting

Professional Practice Portfolios have been required by the authors' university for graduate students in a combined school counseling or school psychology with marriage and family counseling program for over 15 years. The portfolios provide a way for students to demonstrate their professional competencies that are defined by the standards of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, the State body charged with credentialing all educators in California. Additionally, those competencies

Results and discussion

Overall, the students found the construction of their eportfolios to be useful and helpful in reflecting on their competencies and in gaining confidence in using technology. Similar results are seen across years and between the school counselor cohorts and school psychologist cohorts except for the usefulness of eportfolios in understanding professional strengths and weaknesses, reflecting on competence related to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing Standards, recognizing greater

Conclusion

Constructing eportfolios can be a valuable developmental experience and provide a valuable product for students and their instructors. Leveraging technologies such as Google Sites allows students the opportunity to prepare professional portfolios to share with each other for help and support as a community of practice, their instructors for evaluation and assessment purposes, and potential employers as evidence of their professional and technological competencies. Eportfolios therefore are able

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