E-Portfolios: What We Know,What We Don’t,and What We Need to Know

Abstract

Electronic portfolios, also known as e-Portfolios, are commonplace in language education. While e-Portfolio research has evolved over the past two decades, not much is done to evaluate how this scholarship can inform effective language teaching and learning, especially in second language and English as a Foreign Language classroom contexts. This review study intends to fill this much-needed gap by thematically analyzing (1) work done extensively; (2) work done inadequately; and (3) work to be done in the area of e-Portfolio pedagogy and assessment. The review then discusses four thought-provoking pedagogical implications, which attempt to empower teachers to be assessment-capable and technology-literate when e-Portfolios are utilized in authentic classroom settings.

Keywords

Review electronic portfolios language teaching language learning alternative assessment

Introduction

Electronic portfolios, also known as e-Portfolios, are successors of print portfolios, which originated near the turn of the century. E-Portfolios generally refer to digital dossiers, in which students compile and reflect upon multimodal artefacts to review their learning journeys (Yancey, 2019). The rise of e-Portfolios dovetailed with widespread implementations of alternative assessments, prioritizing an evaluation of students’ higher-order thinking skills. The rationale behind e-Portfolios is threefold. First, pedagogical innovations are high on the reform agenda and e-Portfolios are a feasible approach to revolutionize language teaching. Second, in the technological era, using digital media to deliver lessons appears to be an irreversible trend (Hockly and Dudeney, 2018). Third, e-Portfolios and print portfolios have become one prominent embodiment of the assessment for learning movement, wherein students are encouraged to self-regulate their learning with e-assessment feedback and other semiotic resources.

E-Portfolios characterize connectivity, synchronization, multimodality, and community of practice. The pros of e-Portfolios are that they are space-saving, easily retrievable, and permanent if files have backups. Their cons include the demand for the user to have a moderate level of computer literacy, provision of essential infrastructure (Wi-Fi connection), and access to electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, or laptops. There are three major types – namely, (1) print versions uploaded digitally; (2) online assessment systems (e.g. institutional portals); and (3) Web-based portfolios (e.g. open source systems; Yancey, 2004).

In theories of language assessment, e-Portfolios can be evaluated by Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) test usefulness principles – namely, validity, reliability, washback, and practicality. E-Portfolios typically have high validity, given that students have autonomy to collect, select, and reflect upon evidence of learning to fulfil the formative purpose. However, if the choice of e-Portfolio contents is too restrictive, their validity may be low since students are simply relegated to “content providers” (Kimball, 2005: 442) rather than reflective thinkers. Reliability remains a cause for concern, because scoring multimedia and multigenre e-Portfolios is a complex undertaking even if the rubrics have been validated.

E-Portfolios are supposed to spawn positive washback on language teaching and learning, since they can constructively align pedagogy and assessment – for example, coaching students to self-assess their learning metacognitively. Yet, if used for external accountability purpose, the washback effect could become negative, as dishonesty in reflective writings may occur (McGarr and O’Gallchóir, 2020). This phenomenon is about students’ fabrication of language learning experiences to live up to the teacher’s expectations. Unlike their print counterparts, e-Portfolios are less likely to have high practicality, unless teachers and students can master a satisfactory level of computer literacy in order to manage their e-Portfolio systems effectively. Overall, e-Portfolios have high validity, low reliability, positive washback, and possibly moderate to low practicality.

In actuality, e-Portfolios are adopted as both classroom-based assessments – for example, school-based assessment in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in the UK – and large-scale assessments – for instance, European Language Portfolio (ELP) across Europe. In this paper, e-Portfolio scholarship under review looks at research primarily conducted in language classrooms. The aim of this study is to thematically identify what we know, what we know insufficiently, and what we need to know about e-Portfolio scholarship.

Previous Reviews and Search Procedures

In this section, I first critique the three published review studies of e-Portfolios. Then, I describe the search procedures in detail. Thus far, there have been three e-Portfolio review studies – namely, Kimball (2005), Butler (2006), and Aygün and Aydin (2016). Kimball’s (2005) study reviewed 48 database portfolio systems in the US. This review was a rebuttal to the e-Portfolio boom in the early 2000s, when teachers did not critically examine the usefulness of these portfolio systems. The author unpacked six general trends in database portfolios and raised three concerns: (1) the issue of content standardization; (2) lack of reflection; and (3) deprivation of learner agency. He ended his review by arguing that portfolio pedagogy should dictate how to use technology, not vice versa. Similarly, Butler’s (2006) study reviewed 145 articles published in 2003–2006. The review had two sections, with the first one about print portfolios and the second e-Portfolios. The author mainly discussed the benefits and drawbacks of both portfolio types and extended the review to other disciplines such as medicine, nursing, and engineering. The review covered implementation barriers and support mechanisms. However, the paper has been likened to a user manual rather than a critical review about emerging themes and trends of e-Portfolios in language education. Finally, the scope of Aygün and Aydin’s (2016) study is somewhat narrow, reviewing e-Portfolios only in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing. The two authors first chronicled four writing pedagogical approaches in first-language composition studies and then described the background of e-Portfolios. The review largely evaluated how e-Portfolios have impacted writing motivation, technological skills, academic development, and compilation processes. Albeit up to date and focused, the review has numerous overlapping discussions and some themes appear to be irrelevant, like e-Portfolios for pre-service teachers. As discussed above, there are still existing gaps in our knowledge of e-Portfolio scholarship within a larger EFL context, which is the rationale for writing this paper.

The literature search was performed thrice between September and November 2019. The search duration dated back to 1999, when scholars began researching e-Portfolios. Two research assistants and I adopted the methods of keyword search and filtering technique on five databases – that is, Jstor, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Web of Science. The keywords we used for the search were “e-Portfolio”, “digital portfolio”, “web-folio”, and “literacy portfolio”. Nonetheless, we found that the last two keywords yielded numerous irrelevant articles, so they merely served to supplement the search while we were focusing on the first two. We removed irrelevant pieces with agreed-upon exclusion criteria in all three rounds. There were approximately 11,411 articles in the first round, about 3804 in the second round, and about 58 in the third round. After the first round, we excluded those studies published in general education, teacher education, business, medicine, nursing, and engineering. We included empirical and theoretical papers only. We also precluded studies other than second language (L2) and EFL studies. Because of these parameters, we drastically reduced the number of articles for review. During the second round, we went through the titles and abstracts of all potentially relevant items online and further narrowed down the search by eliminating those unrelated to the scope of this study. To avoid oversights, aside from electronic search, we conducted a manual search in six journals – namely, Computers and Composition, International Journal of e-Portfolios, Reading & Writing Quarterly, Internet and Higher Education, Journal of Computer-Assisted Learning, and British Journal of Educational Technology. After browsing some related articles, we added up to 70 items for the current study. Of these, we classified 13 categories corresponding to three salient themes for in-depth discussions.

The Current Review

What We Know

The first theme under review is work done extensively. In this theme, I identified the following five categories: (a) measurements of student overall language learning gains after one or two semesters (Händel et al., 2020); (b) measurements of improvement in particular sub-skills – for example, writing, reading, vocabulary, peer feedback skills, etc. (Sharifi et al., 2017); (c) measurements of how e-Portfolios facilitated uptake of self-regulated learning skills and motivation for learning (Cheng and Chau, 2013); (d) teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the utility of e-Portfolios with a focus on learning outcomes (Daskalogiannaki, 2012); and (e) measurements of the effectiveness of e-Portfolio setup and procedures (mostly practitioner research; Hung and Huang, 2010; Siu, 2013).

Categories (a) and (b) are usually large-scale implementation of e-Portfolios or part of larger funded research projects, wherein reported findings about the use of e-Portfolios need to be made known to the public, taxpayers, funding organizations, or researchers’ affiliated institutions. The findings of these two categories tend to emphasize impact and wider generalizations. Particularly in category (b), these studies usually have a very explicit and practically oriented pedagogical section, which appeals to e-Portfolio enthusiasts aspiring to attempt this alternative instructional approach. Categories (c) and (d) are relatively small-scale, classroom-based research, which investigated how e-Portfolios benefitted EFL learners’ language development and language learning strategies – for example, improved accuracy in writing and effective use of metacognitive learning strategies, such as raising self-assessment questions when revising. Because of their small sampling size, the findings of categories (c) and (d) may not be easily replicable in other educational jurisdictions, but they are still able to add new and insightful knowledge to e-Portfolio scholarship. Category (e) is mostly practitioner research, meaning that the authors played the dual role of teachers and researchers. Its findings may be considered subjective. Nonetheless, they are highly pertinent to frontline teachers, who can apply this procedural knowledge to their work contexts.

The reviewed studies were conducted rigorously, adopting tried and tested instruments to measure specific psychometric traits, such as self-regulated learning and motivation. Regardless of the credibility of this research design, they are chiefly product-oriented rather than process-oriented, measuring learning outcomes instead of portfolio development processes. Another gist of the above studies is that most researchers have treated e-Portfolio initiatives as a pure experiment conducted in a make-believe classroom situation, losing sight of students’ learning diversities and confounding contextual factors, which thwart e-Portfolio implementation.

What We Know Insufficiently

As opposed to the previous section, which describes work done extensively, this part reviews the second theme – work done inadequately in e-Portfolio studies. I sorted out five categories, which suggest that more has to be done to conceptually broaden e-Portfolio research. These categories are: (f) a lack of studies investigating students’ e-Portfolio compilation or keeping experience (Yancey, 2019); (g) a call for more longitudinal studies with the use of sheer qualitative methods (e.g. think-aloud protocols or narrative frames; Lam, 2020); (h) a dearth of studies exploring how students perceive or manage various e-Portfolio interfaces and challenges they encounter (Kotsopoulos et al., 2015); (i) a paucity of research demonstrating how students use different e-resources to facilitate self-reflection within e-Portfolios (Belgrad, 2013); and (j) an obvious lack of studies looking into adolescent students’ e-Portfolio assessment literacy in EFL contexts (Tsagari, 2020).

The rationale behind categories (f) and (g) is that while most studies measured students’ learning gains quantitatively after their exposure to e-Portfolio pedagogy, Lam (2020) has advocated that qualitative methods like narrative frames or social media (Instagram) might capture students’ e-Portfolio learning processes from an autobiographical perspective. Therefore, scholars can understand how students create, manage, and sustain their e-Portfolios introspectively. Regarding category (h), researchers usually take it for granted that learners can automatically handle e-Portfolio interfaces, because they are digital natives. Long before the study by Kotsopoulos et al. (2015), Kimball (2005) warned that it was challenging for students to operate the complex interfaces of database e-Portfolio systems independently. The justification for having more research on category (i) is that scholars remain unsure about how learners draw on multimodal artefacts to perform self-reflection, although they all understood the merits of self-reflection. At the time of writing, no study has ever investigated students’ e-Portfolio assessment literacy – that is, category (j) – although there are studies about student feedback literacy. E-Portfolio assessment literacy involves students’ knowledge, skills, and principles in compiling their digital dossiers with a key focus on language-learning enhancement.

This second theme has suggested that researchers need more qualitative and longitudinal studies to validate the long-term usefulness of e-Portfolios on language learning. Furthermore, they need to develop a better understanding of how varied multimodal components of e-Portfolios facilitate or obstruct the acts of self-reflective thinking and composing. Since students are the ultimate consumers of e-Portfolios, scholars should observe how students conceive (knowledge), compile (skills), and develop an awareness of (principles) their e-Portfolios holistically. After all, it is significant to understand the actual experiences of students, yet students’ voices are least heard in language assessment (Lee and Butler, 2020). Thus, research into students’ e-Portfolio assessment literacy is sorely needed.

What We Need to Know

This section examines the third theme – work to be done, pointing to possible future directions for e-Portfolio scholarship. Under this theme, I have identified three categories that are worth investigating: (k) studies examining how students use social media as e-Portfolio sites to take stock of their language learning (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, TikTok; Barrot, 2016); (l) projects that look into how e-Portfolios can synergize summative and formative assessment positively, especially through e-assessment feedback (Lam, in press); (m) studies that investigate challenges associated with e-Portfolio assessment if used as a high-stakes test, such as scoring standardization, raters’ training, rubric construction and validation, and automated e-Portfolio scoring systems (Butler, 2006).

Not only are the above three categories (k), (l), and (m) considered the latest areas of inquiry in e-Portfolio research, but they also make e-Portfolio assessment technologically applicable to wider educational contexts, pedagogically feasible to fulfil multiple purposes in one go, and administratively suitable for large-scale implementation. As to category (k), most researchers have adopted weblogs (WordPress), custom-made e-Portfolio software tools (Mahara), and commercial learning management systems (Moodle) when they conducted portfolio studies. In the near future, more can be done to see how different social media platforms could serve as multimodal e-Portfolio sites to enhance self-efficacy beliefs, learning motivation, literacy skills, metacognitive thinking skills, and computer literacy. To date, categories (l) and (m) are least explored areas, because e-Portfolio research agendas are mainly about pedagogy and curriculum more than about educational assessment – for example, assessment for learning and assessment as learning (Lam, in press). Additionally, researchers remain doubtful about the reliability and practicality of e-Portfolios when they are used as standardized, large-scale assessments to achieve the external accountability purpose (Little, 2012).

The third theme under review can be said to be forward-looking and unpredictable, even though categories (k), (l), and (m) are promising research agendas, which are likely to generate high-impact e-Portfolio scholarship and to make theoretical contributions. Notwithstanding such advantages, researchers should observe the functionalities of diverse social media sites, deciding whether they are appropriate for being transformed into a user/reader-friendly e-Portfolio system. It is necessary for teachers to be cautious about privacy issues when their pupils (mostly minors) use social media platforms. In addition, adopting e-Portfolios to achieve both formative and summative assessment purposes concomitantly demands teachers’ proficient knowledge and skills. Implementing large-scale e-Portfolio assessment across a nation or a municipality definitely requires collaborations among different stakeholders and public funding for technological development.

Implications for Teaching

Upon reviewing 13 categories of e-Portfolio scholarship, I have come up with four pedagogical implications. First, teachers are advised to develop a better understanding of their students’ diverse learning needs and identify possible confounding contextual factors, which impede the application of e-Portfolio initiatives. With this input, they can design a customized e-Portfolio program to benefit students’ language learning more readily. Second, teachers need to possess a moderate level of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), which enables them to master technology, pedagogy, and subject content interdependently when they attempt their e-Portfolio systems. For instance, some teachers are proficient in utilizing mobile learning apps (attainment of technological knowledge), but they may not adopt them pedagogically to support effective language teaching and learning (a lack of pedagogical knowledge). These two implications require reflective practices in teaching and continued professional training in TPACK, such as webinars, face-to-face workshops, attendance at conferences, and action research (Hockly and Dudeney, 2018).

Third, when planning and initiating e-Portfolio programs, teachers should listen to students’ voices – namely, what linguistic skills they want to learn and what goals they want to achieve in their e-Portfolios. Further, teachers may involve students in decision-making processes, like selection of e-Portfolio assessment tasks or construction of scoring rubrics (Barrett, 2007). Fourth, teachers need to explore the feasibility of using social media as e-Portfolios platforms to synergize formative and summative assessment purposes. By so doing, they need to provide students with formative e-assessment feedback, be it textual, audio, or visual. As to summative feedback, a validated analytical scoring rubric should be applied. It could consist of 50% for diverse e-Portfolio genres (product), 20% for participation (process), and 30% for portfolio evidence in support of reflective writings (reflection). The last two implications expect teachers to maximize learner involvement in the assessment process and to familiarize themselves with up-to-date e-assessment tools for promulgating the e-Portfolio approach (Cummins and Davesne, 2009).

Concluding Remarks

In this study, I have reviewed selected e-Portfolio scholarship in the area of language education, specifically targeting EFL classroom contexts. After an evaluative analysis and in-depth interpretation, 13 categories were identified and the representative studies chosen under each category were further grouped into three themes. I have discussed all categories by highlighting their key features meticulously, and then reviewed how these categories fitted into their respective themes conceptually. The paper is likely to make significant contributions to e-Portfolio scholarship by summarizing what has been extensively achieved, what has been insufficiently achieved, and what has to be done in the near future. It can undeniably enrich scholars’ and teachers’ understanding of how to move the e-Portfolio pedagogy forward, showing that e-Portfolio is not a “fad” but an alternative approach to advancing language teaching and learning, especially in this challenging time – the pandemic. Like other studies, this study has limitations. It is neither a systematic nor a scoping review, which generates an impactful effect size. Owing to the word limit, it is impossible to discuss all studies, but only the most relevant ones.

Footnotes

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was funded by the Language Fund under Research and Development Projects 2018-19 of the Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR), Hong Kong SAR (EDB(LE)/P&R/EL/175/4).

ORCID iD

Ricky Lam

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