IMPACT OF STUDENT E-PORTFOLIOS LITERATURE REVIEW 1

Impact of Student E-Portfolios Literature Review

Elizabeth C. Garcia

Lamar University
IMPACT OF STUDENT E-PORTFOLIOS LITERATURE REVIEW 2

Student E-Portfolios Literature Review

Cooper and Love (2007) define a portfolio as an organized collection of documents or

artifacts that can be used to demonstrate knowledge, skills, values and achievements, which

contains a commentary or exegesis to explain the relevance, credibility and coherence of each

artifact or document (p. 270). We will consider an e-portfolio to simply be any electronic form

of a portfolio. This literature review will not focus on determining the most suitable type of e-

portfolio students can create nor will it focus on the different platforms that can be used to host

student e-portfolios. The focus will be on the impact implementing student e-portfolios has had

on learning experiences for students in regard to student engagement and student academic

performance.

It has been repeatedly noted that simply adding a digital device to the classroom without

a fundamental change in the culture of teaching and learning will not lead to significant

improvement (November, 2013, para.8) in education. One-to-one initiatives are not likely to

meet their stated goals if they solely focus on using technology in the classroom; they need to

shift their focus to utilizing technology as a tool to support students in their learning process. It

can never be just about the technology, it has to be about the learning. Research shows that just

because students are using the technology doesnt necessarily mean that they learning.

(Schaffhauser, 2014, p.10) In the past decade there has been a rise in the use of student e-

portfolios in the classroom which is supported by the one-to-one initiatives that many school

districts have already implemented. We will now explore the various experiences schools have

had with the integration of student e-portfolios and how they interpret the impact it has had on

students overall learning experiences, particularly student engagement and academic

performance.
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Student Engagement

Student engagement occurs when the student is actively interacting with the information

at hand. Zubizarreta (2009) states that more significant learning is likely to occur if the student

is encouraged to come to terms self-consciously over the duration of an academic endeavor (p.

5) which can be accomplished through an e-portfolio. Maintaining an e-portfolio encourages

students to take an active role in the learning process. This higher level of engagement is

typically correlated with a higher level of understanding. We will now explore two methods of

keeping students engaged: reflections and ownership.

Metacognitive Learning (Reflections)

Student e-portfolios have been gaining momentum as we act on John Deweys notion that

we do not learn from experience we learn from reflecting on experience (Derizans &

Bibbo, 2015, p. 78) and Carol Dwecks concept of growth mindset which encourages progress

over product. Many educators have found that when students take the time to reflect on their

learning, the retention of knowledge tends to be higher due to the students being able to make

more substantial connections. (Derizans & Bibbo, 2015, p.80)

The Researching Electronic portFolios: Learning, Engaging, and Collaboration through

Technology (REFLECT) initiative began in the fall of 2004 inspired by the lack of literature on

student e-portfolio implementation in a K-12 setting. This research project involved 20 sites and

took place over the course of two years. Through the REFLECT initiative they found that e-

portfolios support reflection which can help students understand their own learning. They also

found that the more successful sites use the school-wide, cross-curricular approach [which]

seems to offer the most exiting potential to support teaching, learning, and change (Barrett,

2007, p.447). This study also found that the teachers roles have a higher impact on learning
IMPACT OF STUDENT E-PORTFOLIOS LITERATURE REVIEW 4

than the technology itself. The students cannot simply be given a device and told to make an e-

portfolio, they need to receive meaningful feedback from their teachers.

The Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project

conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities also set out to measure the

impact and effectiveness of student e-portfolios. They found that the development of an e-

portfolio included the processes found within the concept of metacognition; students were

reflecting on their work and therefore were consciously thinking about their overall progress in

learning. When students were interviewed at the conclusion of the VALUE project, many talked

about them realizing the importance of their work as they developed their e-portfolios.

Additionally, students repeatedly mentioned how it enhanced their overall understanding of the

learning experience. (Miller & Morgaine, 2009, p.12)

Reflections call for students input. Students cannot sit there passively as the teacher

navigates from one topic to another. As students develop their e-portfolios, their audience, which

can consist of multiple teachers, parents, and peers, gets to see what the students understood,

how they interpreted it, and how they could apply it.

Ownership of Learning

In 2012, Garrison Forest School located in Baltimore, Maryland began a pilot of an e-

portfolio program. This school in particular felt that their methods of instruction were already

strong, through the pilot of this program they sought to have the students take ownership of their

learning in order to create more meaningful learning experiences. Garrison Forest School found

that by using e-portfolios the students began to take ownership of their learning process and in

doing so, they made the important shift from passive learners to the constructors and creators of

their own learning journeys (Shriver, 2014, p.76). The students were able to shift from passive
IMPACT OF STUDENT E-PORTFOLIOS LITERATURE REVIEW 5

learners to constructors and creators as they became increasingly engaged in their learning

experiences.

Students in the Faculty of Education at Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey were

selected to be a part of a study in which they were introduced to e-portfolios and given a list of

the minimum that needed to be on the e-portfolio throughout the course. The reflections written

throughout the program were reviewed as they were interviewed at the end of the study. The

students mentioned that engaging in the e-portfolio process helped them develop regular study

habits rather than cramming for tests and forgetting the content they memorized shortly after the

tests. (Cimer, 2011, p. 168) These students were able to take ownership of their learning as they

consistently engaged with the material, which ultimately resulted in an increase in their retention

of knowledge.

Three teachers began the initiative of piloting the use of student e-portfolios to guide

student-led conferences at Lincoln Middle School located in Portland, Maine. The pilot was

studied in order to examine the perceived effectiveness of this concept from the point of view of

all stakeholders. When they surveyed the students, teachers, and parents near the end of the

study they found that majority agreed that the e-portfolios helped students take responsibilities

for their own work, reflect on their own work, self-assess their work, and set future goals for

themselves. (Juniewicz, 2003, p.75) Students felt empowered as they engaged in the process of

developing their e-portfolios and were therefore able to take ownership of their learning. It is

important to note that the students were not simply spectators of this e-portfolio process, they

were actively engaged in all aspects of the process which meant they were actively engaged in

their learning.
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Academic Performance

How do we know whether or not students have mastered a deep understanding of the

topic at hand? We look at their academic performance, which is most commonly measured

through grades. There are many different ways to obtain grades, however two that we will focus

on are critical thinking skills and assessments.

Critical Thinking

A major benefit of student e-portfolios is that e-portfolios are helping students become

critical thinkers and aiding in the development of their writing and multimedia communication

skills (Lorenzo & Ittelson, 2005, p. 3). Not only are students continuously improving their

writing skills due to the practice and feedback they receive from their teachers as well as their

peers, students are also receiving more opportunities to think critically. For most students, a perk

of developing an e-portfolio is that it, allows for creative thinking and collaboration with

others (Gathercoal, Love, Bryde, & McKean, 2002, p. 31). Students are no longer being tied

down to the didactic model in which there is only one way of demonstrating their learning and

doing so in isolation. Students now have virtually endless possibilities of media at their disposal

which they can use to showcase their learning. They can develop their critical thinking skills as

they select the media they will use to present their learning and piece it all together. Since the

learner is part of the process, the learner is more likely to be actively engaged in the learning. E-

portfolios can provide concrete authentic evidence of students critical thinking, which allows

teachers to see whether students have a deep or surface level understanding of the topic, which

can then be used to measure academic performance more accurately. In this case, the grade

given would actually reflect the students level of understanding, as opposed to reflecting mere

compliance to finish an assignment.

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Assessments

Teachers in Decatur, Illinois had a vision for using student e-portfolios as authentic

assessments. They saw that with the push for differentiated instruction, portfolios would offer

more opportunity to assess an individuals growth (Dotson & Henderson, 2009, p. 14). The

ability to see the progression of their students work throughout the school year via the e-

portfolios enabled these teachers to have more productive student conferences, better

accommodate to the needs of the students, engage in more knowledgeable conversations with

parents, and have sufficient data when referring students for special services. (Dotson &

Henderson, 2009, p. 18) With all of these improvements, teachers are able to further empower

students to take ownership of their learning. Having all of this information readily available

gives both the teachers and students the potential to identify the accommodations that are

necessary in order to improve academic performance. In this study, the e-portfolio allowed for

the teachers to take formative grades of what the student accomplished throughout the process,

as opposed to simply taking a summative grade of the final product. Implementing e-portfolios

and having teachers utilize components of those e-portfolios as concrete formative assessments

could lead to semester grades that more accurately reflect the growth that a student has

undergone.

Conclusion

Teachers all over the world have begun to integrate student e-portfolios into their

classrooms. E-portfolios have proven to offer many benefits such as students learning how to

collaborate and think critically. Perhaps the most common outcome is that as students become

increasingly actively engaged as they reflect on their learning while developing their e-

portfolios, they also take ownership of the learning. Students taking ownership of their learning
IMPACT OF STUDENT E-PORTFOLIOS LITERATURE REVIEW 8

has proven to lead to higher retention of knowledge, which can be reflected on their semester

grades. All of this ultimately leads to creating more meaningful learning experiences for all

involved.
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References

Barrett, H. C. (2007). Researching electronic portfolios and learner engagement: The REFLECT

initiative. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(6), 436449.

https://doi.org/10.1598/JAAL.50.6.2

Cimer, S. O. (2011). The effect of portfolios on students learning: student teachers views.

European Journal of Teacher Education, 34(2), 161176.

https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2011.552183

Cooper, T., & Love, T. (2007). Electronic portfolios in e-learning. In N. Buzzetto-More (Ed.),

Advanced principles of effective e-learning. Santa Rosa, CA: Informing Science Press.

Derizans, R., & Bibbo, T. (2015). Time to reflect e-portfolios and the development of growth

mindsets. Independent School, 74(2), 7885.

Dotson, R. K., & Henderson, M. (2009). Using student portfolios to guide instruction. Illinois

Reading Council Journal, 37(4), 1419.

Gathercoal, P., Love, D., Bryde, B., & McKean, G. (2002). Web-based electronic portfolios.

EDUCAUSE Quaterly, 2937.

Juniewicz, K. (2003). Student portfolios with a purpose. The Clearing House.

https://doi.org/10.1080/00098650309601232

Lorenzo, G., & Ittelson, J. (2005). An overview of e-portfolios. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative,

127. https://doi.org/10.1177/1048371314523964

Miller, R., & Morgaine, W. (2009). The benefits of e-portfolios for students and faculty in their

own words. Peer Review, 11(1), 812. Retrieved from

http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-wi09/pr-wi09_benefits.cfm
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November, A. (2013). Why schools must move beyond one-to-one computing. November

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Schaffhauser, D. (2014). 9 Lessons from 1-to-1 pioneers. (Cover story). T H E Journal, 41(3),

1017. Retrieved from

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Shriver, C. (2014). A 21st-century tool for 21st-century learning. Independent School, 73(2), 70

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Zubizarreta, J. (2009). The learning portfolio: reflective practice for improving student learning.

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