Using reflective e-portfolios to promote student learning
in the transition to higher education
Serena BuftonEster Ehiyazaryan
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
The Context
• A first-year assessed skills and support module on a large, social science degree.
• Assessed personal/academic development planning introduced in 2001.
• Evidence of lack of engagement and general dislocation and alienation amongst students.
How may e-portfolios help?
E-portfolio use may encourage:
• greater ownership of learning; • integrative learning;• more reflective, ’intentional’
learning;• pedagogic innovation.
Research Project
• ‘PebblePad’ e-portfolio tool introduced for first-year students in January 2007.
• Assessed PDP work carried out using the tool.
• Analysis of 30 PDPs.• Four focus-group meetings, three
with students and one with tutors.
Dimensions of Intentional Learning
• Taking responsibility• Taking stock• Taking Action
Taking Responsibility: Challenges Identified by
Students
• Looser external direction and time-management.
• A less personalised learning context.• Unfamiliar academic conventions.• Loss of motivation.
How can e-portfolio help?
• Facilitates frequent and speedy on-going support and feedback.
• Provides an additional channel of communication and a forum for sharing and collaborative work.
• Becomes a focus for the integration of learning across modules and levels.
• Encourages ownership of learning.
Taking Stock: Challenges Identified by Students
• Lack of understanding of feedback provided by tutors:– ‘referencing’– ‘analysis’– ‘creativity’
• Little experience of assessing own academic strengths and weaknesses.
How can e-portfolio help?
• Provides a window on students’ thought processes and a space for exploring feedback.
• Structures the process of self assessment and links it to an evidential base.
• Encourages students to make links between their feedback and reflections in different modules.
Taking Action: Challenges Identified by Students
• Feedback not viewed as:– ‘actionable’– a basis for on-going dialogue
• Students distracted by more mundane (but pressing) challenges such as time management.
• Students are uncertain about how to evaluate the actions they take.
How can e-portfolio help?
• Provides an additional vehicle for on-going, contextually-based dialogue with other students and tutors.
• The iterative cycle of work, feedback and reflection and the linking of past, present and future learning encourage a more holistic approach to learning.
Further research
• We are tracking these students in their second and third years to see what use they make of their e-portfolios.
• Our central question is whether, and how, e-portfolio use helps students to reflect upon and improve their learning.
• An additional interest is the pedagogic potential of e-portfolios more generally.