E-Portfolios Project

Background

CEBE has recently received funding from JISC to investigate the use of E-portfolios for recording achievements during periods of workplace experience. There is evidence to suggest that certain aspects of the development of professionals are best learned in the workplace, rather than through more formal academic situations. Research suggests that learning in the workplace can be enhanced through the use of techniques that encourage reflection. How might educators use e-portfolios to encourage meaningful and useful reflection by students during periods of workplace experience? Specifically this means:

Research questions:

What role do activities that encourage reflection have during workplace learning?
To what extent is reflection incorporated into current practices?
How might e-portfolios be used to facilitate reflection and improve upon current practices?
- how might a portfolio be structured, and to what extent should educators dictate structure?
- what should a portfolio contain, and the extent by which educators should dictate content?
- How might using the portfolio, draw out examples of tacit knowledge?
- How might peer review aid the reflective process?

Method

Conduct a review of existing research on the purpose and benefits of encouraging reflection in professional development.
Conduct a critical review of those systems currently in place to support reflection and enhance learning in workplace learning such as:
- Loughborough Universities Rapid Programme
- RIBA’s Professional Education and Development Record (PEDR)
- Cardiff University’s professional record in architecture
Evaluate the different techniques used by educators (in other disciplines) to integrate the tool’s usage into their educational programmes and identify those areas that might be considered as good practice.
Evaluate how students are able to reflect upon the development of abilities, knowledge and understanding, attitudes and values, skills and competencies.

Data collection

Case studies and interviews with individual students who have used the tools and techniques identified above.

Outputs

Creation of a series of demonstration portfolios using a range of e-portfolio systems to demonstrate how e-portfolios can be used.
the generation of a good practice guide that can inform educators.
A series of regional/national workshops will be set up to allow hands on experience of developing E-Portfolios for work based experience in the built environment.
In addition, it is hoped that as a second phase of this project, CEBE would be able to fund, from its own recurrent grant, a series of evaluative case studies in the use of E-Portfolios for placement learning

Contacts

Andrew Roberts (RobertsAS@cf.ac.uk)
Nawara Mizban (MizbanN@cf.ac.uk)