Developing and evaluating e-portfolio for the final year project (FYP)

The most attractive feature of an e-portfolio is the high student involvement in putting together the contents of an e-portfolio, often through discussion or negotiation with teacher. The portfolio provides a more rounded and reliable assessment of learning achieved than written examinations or essay assignments alone. An evaluation-based learning system for the final year project was set up as e-portfolio for students to monitor their learning process during the semester, including two online evaluations on the knowledge on “research method”. Lecturer will revisit the content of “research method” based on the result of online evaluation, and give online reading materials and articles to both experimental group (SN) and control group (SN) to help them write up different parts of project, and control group (Non-SN) without receiving any online materials. There were also two online quizzes to re-assess how much they understand about the content of “research method” again after receiving online materials/articles and lecturer’s supervisions in both experimental group (SN) and control group (SN) and just receiving lecturer’s supervision in control group (Non-SN). An experimental study, ANCOVA analysis, and within-subject analysis were conducted to reveal students’ learning effectiveness in the study. Forty final year full-time BEd (ECE) students in either 15 students in an experimental group (SN) or 25 students in two control groups (15 students in SN and 10 students in Non-SN) were invited to participate in the study. The CLEI (College Learning Effective Inventory) was used to measure student learning effectiveness during the study. The result indicated that students in the experimental group receiving e-portfolio assessment-based learning system performed better in online quizzes and report write-up than the two control groups did. This implies that e-portfolio evaluation-based teaching can help students learn better in writing up the final year project. For students in the experimental group (SN), they are encouraged to upload materials, literatures, or video clips, related to their research topics onto e-learning to share with group mates. As regards learning effectiveness, the within-subject analysis indicated that most students in the experimental group (SN) have shown improvement in academic self-efficacy, organization and attention to study, and class communication by the end of the project. Students reflected higher anticipation of goal achievement, more effective goal planning, and better involvement in class activity. Copyright © 2012 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.