What does students’ experience of e-portfolios suggest

The university under research is a comprehensive educational institution based in Northwest China. Originally, it solely offered petroleum engineering education for undergraduates and postgraduates as well. Now, it has moved forward to become a multidisciplinary university providing both teaching and research services regarding oil engineering, chemical engineering, foreign language education, Chinese language education, Chinese literature, physical training, arts, new materials, mathematics, physics, electronic engineering, etc. E-portfolios are implemented in this university by 22 teachers with pioneering spirits, who presume that the e-portfolio can improve productive learning and student-teacher interaction as well as enable formative evaluation. The 22 teachers set up a qq group to handle e-portfolios put forward by their students. A total of 902 students majoring in oil engineering (Course A), chemical engineering (Course B), new materials (Course C), mathematics (Course D) and English (Course D) took advantage of e-portfolios to complete various tasks assigned by teachers in the past 2 years. Out of 902 students, 102 were randomly selected. Among the 102 students, 56 were from the oil-engineering department, 23 from the English department, 10 the from chemical engineering department, 5 from the new materials department and 8 from the mathematics department.

The 102 sample students were divided into 22 groups with each group including 3 or 4 students. Then, the name list of each group was sent to 30 teachers, who were randomly selected on campus for this research. They acted as interviewers and were informed of the goal, processes and significance of the research. Interviews were conducted in different places and in the time specified by each of the interviewers. Each took about 30–50 min and was recorded via a voice recorder. The interview of this research is semi-structured, based on the following questions:

How do you think of the effectiveness of e-portfolios in knowledge creation?

The data collected were approached using thematic analysis [7]. Five teachers analysed the interview transcripts separately by identifying quotes with key words related to the research. Then, they summarised key points of each quote. The main ideas were figured out by group discussion on the key points of all the quotes. These main ideas were then classified into several categories, from which codes were developed to further analyse the transcripts. Themes were identified based on these coded transcripts. These themes are illustrated in the following sections.

Students in Course A, B and C told the interviewers that they were required to present their experiments in video or PPT forms by their teachers. In order to complete their tasks, besides organizing, planning and conducting experiments as well as reading the literature, they had to collect information regarding their video-shooting skills and PPT producing tips. This has provided them with a good chance to extend their reach and build new knowledge. Students in Course D also mentioned the necessity of reading more materials and reference books so as to produce the e-works. Such results are consistent with recent researches in higher education in accounting [10,11,12,13].

Teachers of Course A, B, C and D demanded their students to set up a learning plan and to put down reflective journals in a PPT form, based on which they would offer feedback on a regular basis. This allows the students and teachers to manage the learning process effectively and eventually, greatly enhances the operational efficiency of e-portfolios [14, 15]. In this way, students and teachers can work together to quickly remove obstacles and clarify misunderstanding in a timely manner, allowing learning to occur in the right direction.

E-portfolios enabled students to clearly present their learning process so as to allow teachers to correct their mistakes made therein. For example, after watching a video produced by a student of Course B, the teacher quickly figured out the mistakes made by the student during an experiment. A student of Course D pointed out a mistake made by one of her peers when exercising English pronunciation after watching the video he uploaded as part of his e-works.

All students of the four courses have attested to the advantages of using e-portfolios to replace standard examination. They agreed that the e-portfolios enabled them to present their products and abilities in multiple dimensions. Instead of indulging themselves in memorising static information about a course, they could now showcase both their learning products and processes through e-works. This was extremely helpful and practical for students of Course A and B. Students of all the four courses agreed that, when compared with traditional examination, e-portfolios could make complicated or abstract knowledge much more vivid, creative and easier to understand. Meanwhile, it may also reduce test anxiety, which was commonly seen among the test-takers in standard examination [8].

Among the 102 students, >50% thought that the creation of various kinds of e-works was exciting by itself. Many students compared the construction of e-works to that of playing games. They enjoyed the new learning style and were willing to explore more. What's more is that they were also happy to find that their ties with their peers had been strengthened after cooperating and supporting each other in producing their e-portfolios.

However, the path to implementing e-portfolios was not entirely smooth and unclouded. Around 30% of the 102 students had expressed their confusion regarding e-portfolios. These students thought that the adoption of e-portfolios was simply another part of the ongoing globalisation efforts, and that their teachers just wanted to keep up with this trend. About 11.76% of 102 students thought that the goal of e-portfolios was to cater to the teachers’ working-at-home style. With e-portfolios, teachers did not need to carry the heavy load of paper homework back and forth between home and campus. About 16.6% of 102 students considered the e-portfolios to be a waste of time. According to these students, the e-portfolios were fairly time-consuming.

About 14.7% students of Course D mentioned that the anxiety was aroused with e-portfolios. They said that they did not know how to make excellent PPT document and video recording though they had strong expectation for doing it well. They had become fairly depressed because they usually spent more time on preparing presentation than on content. About 0.09% students had conveyed the message that better, time-saving, education-oriented and easy-to-use application suits needed to be developed so as to help them better present their work while enabling them to focus their efforts on content instead of form.

All teachers of the four courses used students’ e-work as part of their final evaluation, which accounted for 20% of the total score. Though all the 22 teachers agreed that e-works were an effective way to conduct formative assessment, >68.62% students were sceptical about their validity and reliability. A total of 17 students directly expressed their anger towards teachers and thought that they were not fairly scored. They thought that teachers just made their judgement based on personal preference. In addition, they also doubted if the e-works assigned by their teachers were consistent and well-designed, and if they may effectively represent the teaching purpose of the course. When asked if they could do better had they been given another chance, most of the students offered a positive answer. Failure testimonies from students revealed that most of the students thought that it was the technology and not their learning abilities that prevented them from achieving better grades.

About 24.5% students said that they had received prompt feedback from their teachers. Most of the students’ questions could not be answered by the teachers in a timely manner. Students wondered if IT staffs could find a way to solve this problem from a technology front.

About 4.9% students had mentioned problems associated with privacy in the e-portfolios. These students did not like to demonstrate their learning plan, processes, questions and products to their peers due to personal reasons. They preferred to communicate only with teachers. However, uploading their e-portfolios to qq group made them feel like they were being stalked by their peers, which elicited much anxiety from them. For these students, e-portfolios had defeated their enthusiasm for learning. Thus, a more secure system needs to be devised [17,18,19].