Incorporating the Portfolio
Strategy into the Department’s Assessment Plan
Donald W. Rodd, PhD
Department of Human Kinetics
and Sport Studies
University of Evansville
Evansville, IN 47722
THE USE OF ASSESSMENT has
been an integral part of academics for years and more recently has taken
on a new prominence driven by college and university accreditation agencies
that regard assessment as an essential component of an educational organization’s
overall effectiveness (1,2). To comply with this accreditation mandate,
many colleges and universities have established assessment bodies to develop
and maintain assessment strategies for the institution.
As a result of increased
institutional assessment the demand for more specific and detailed assessment
plans have been placed on departmental academic units. The goal of departmental
assessment is to determine the effectiveness of its curriculum in measurable
student outcomes including knowledge and skills needed by the student to
fulfill their post baccalaureate goals. Frequently, academic departments
and institutions view assessment as a periodic activity motivated by approaching
accreditation visits or assessment plan deadlines, an approach driven by
external forces.
Internal forces, on the other
hand, drive faculty to understand the academic success or failure of their
students and to develop strategies to correct curricular problems. Internally
driven approaches to assessment tend to foster curiosity regarding the
interaction between curriculum and student experiences and how student
learning is influenced by classroom and real world experiences. A carefully
thought out assessment plan affords faculty the opportunity to examine
the departmental curricular expectations of students and the actual student
achievement.
When student assessment results
do not match departmental expectations, a carefully thought out assessment
plan can help faculty determine why and how to remedy the situation with
appropriate curricular changes. It is not uncommon for academic departments
to go through a period of change such as revising curriculum, redesigning
advising or establishing internship networks. Often the goal is to improve
the learning experience and to foster professional development of students
for life post baccalaureate. These curricular changes should be driven
in part by assessment results.
At the University of Evansville,
assessment results must be included as a rationale for departmental curricular
changes. This forces academic departments to use the assessment as originally
intended to document the effort, progress and achievements of the learner
through effective curriculum. If students are not progressing or achieving,
then curricular changes are warranted.
As the reliance on assessment
has become more widespread, the tools of assessment have become more diverse.
In the past, education relied heavily on traditional assessment consisting
of in-class and standardized written tests and examinations as the main
or sole component of assessment. This type of assessment strategy is thought
to test what students can recognize or recall out of context and is confined
to assessing student recall, knowledge and skill (3). In addition, tests
and examinations do not always assess the ability of students to utilize
their knowledge.
Alternative assessment tools
present the student with an assortment of tasks allowing them to demonstrate
how effectively they can utilize their knowledge, solve problems and explain
the process in authentic situations. In addition, alternative assessments
allow faculty to more effectively evaluate student outcomes and determine
whether the student meets the required departmental objectives. Some of
the various assessment strategies available to measure student outcomes
include (4):
• Classroom assessment:
test results (in class, standardized), final grades
• Acceptance into graduate
school
• Employment
• Self reports: alumni survey,
senior survey, exit interview
• Third party reports: internship
evaluations, employer evaluations
• Portfolios
Some disciplines have standardized
tests such as major field tests (5) to evaluate their students compared
to national comparative results. This provides an evaluation of a student’s
basic knowledge of core undergraduate curriculum and can be utilized at
various times during a student’s matriculation to track student learning.
Since the field of exercise physiology does not have a major field test
available, many academic departments use the results from certification
exams such as the "Certified Exercise Physiologist" from the American Society
of Exercise Physiologists (ASEP) and the various certifications from the
American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) as an assessment strategy.
Utilizing either ASEP or
ACSM certifications or both as an assessment strategy can be an effective
tool documenting the acquisition of knowledge toward a professional field.
Typically, students sit for these certification exams in the senior year
or just after graduation. This provides a snapshot of student outcome often
late in a student’s career verifying the curriculum was effective for that
particular student. However, what of the weak student who becomes certified
with a marginally passing score? He or she may become a marginal exercise
physiologist and not represent the degree granting academic program with
distinction. Can the academic unit guard against marginal students graduating
from their program?
While not a panacea, using
alternative assessment strategies of student learning and performance throughout
a student’s academic career can more adequately prepare students for post
baccalaureate life. One alternative assessment strategy that may provide
the means to assess a student’s knowledge and performance, ranging from
weak to strong academically, throughout his or her academic career is the
portfolio. It affords the student and faculty the opportunity to track
learning and performance and allow the student to demonstrate skills and
accomplishments throughout his or her skills career. The portfolio can
serve merely as a storehouse for academic results with no history of the
progress of student learning or it can be a chronicle of learning and professional
development.
As an assessment tool, the
portfolio can be started in the freshman year and continued throughout
the student’s academic career with information collected from various sources
through multiple methods over multiple time points (6). Contents of the
portfolio may include such items as written and/or practical tests, standardized
tests, case studies, writing samples, photos, videos, internship evaluations,
self-reflection, personal essays, peer evaluations, research results and
many others. The source of the contents should be from different individuals
including the student, various faculty, teachers, internship supervisors,
family members, colleagues, community members and others.
The portfolio should provide
a strategy for systematically collecting and organizing the contents. The
portfolio allows the evaluator to view the student as a unique individual
and follow the personal and professional development of the student as
they overcome his or her own unique deficiencies. Recently, electronic
portfolios or e-portfolios have become a popular alternative to the paper
portfolio making it easier to organize, store and distribute the material.
In addition there are several initiatives underway to develop software,
templates and other tools for development and integration of electronic
portfolios into existing campus technology systems. The American Association
for Higher Education maintains a good resource center for electronic portfolios
(7).
The use of portfolios can
be very helpful in exercise science/exercise physiology programs to track
and document the professional development of young exercise physiologists.
In fact exercise science/exercise physiology curriculum should lend itself
to a rich array of content for inclusion into the portfolio including test
results, practical exam results, photos or videos of practical exams, internship
goals, internship goal evaluation, internship supervisor evaluations, research
results, self reflections and certification results.
Since the goal of many exercise
science/exercise physiology programs is to develop competency in the classroom,
laboratory and in real world experiences, the portfolio should be competency
based, similar to the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education
Programs (CAAHEP) accredited educational programs for athletic training
(8). In other words, a student must exhibit competence in specific areas
in order to advance. To follow the competency based model of CAAHEP requires
recommended competencies to fulfill and ASEP can provide the necessary
competencies required by academic departments.
For example, the ASEP learning
objectives found in the Guidelines for the Accreditation of Undergraduate
Programs in Exercise Physiology (9) can serve as competencies for many
exercise science/exercise physiology programs. A department could look
through the objectives and choose all or some as competencies for the student
portfolio. As the student moves through his or her major program, he/she
can document that competencies have been fulfilled and the faculty have
the ability to check that necessary competencies have been fulfilled and
meet the departmental standards for progress. The assessment of the portfolio
can act as a filter to prevent inadequately prepared students from moving
through professional programs.
While the portfolio concept
may appear to be very useful and appealing, many faculty members may be
concerned about the intrusion of portfolio assessment into already busy
schedules. Indeed, the assessment of portfolios may be daunting if left
for a single faculty member. However, the portfolio assessment procedure
can be integrated into the departmental assessment strategy and incorporated
as part of the normal workload for some or all of the departmental faculty
members.
The initiation and development
of the portfolio strategy into departmental assessment may at first appear
to be an intimidating and overwhelming task. There are however, many wonderful
and extremely helpful resources available to assist academic departments
in their portfolio development (10-13). Once the department or program
has decided to incorporate the portfolio into the assessment plan some
additional decisions must be made:
1. The purpose and
type of portfolio must be determined.
2. Will the portfolio be
for personal growth and development, to satisfy competencies for certification
or for employment?
3. What type of portfolio
is required?
An employment portfolio with
artifacts for job placement, a personal portfolio with artifacts introducing
the student personally and demonstrating a career as an exercise physiologist
or a working portfolio that is an evolving collection of artifacts exhibiting
growth and development both personally and professionally. The portfolio
style chosen should be organized around a collection of standards, whether
determined by the department or by a professional organization.
Next the implementation process
must be determined including when periodic review will occur and the closure
process. The time frame of the portfolio is an important decision driven
in part by the goals, purposes and type of portfolio. To assess student
development, the academic department must decide on when in their academic
career (freshman, sophomore, junior or senior year) the student should
start their portfolio. Upon establishing the time frame, some mechanism
must be in place to guide students into the development of the portfolio
and help them start the creation process such as an introductory course
or a portfolio advisor. Next the management and storage of the portfolio
must be determined. Will the portfolio be an e-folio or materials stored
in some type of folder or binder?
Finally, the assessment strategy
must be determined with some type or scoring rubric and who will perform
the assessment of the portfolios. Once these portfolio basics are determined
the department or program can begin incorporating the portfolio strategy
into their assessment plan. Once the basic template for the portfolio is
formed, exercise science/exercise physiology program faculty will easily
find a diverse set of material for inclusion into the portfolio to document
a student’s effort, progress and achievement toward academic and professional
goals.
References
1. The North Central Association
of Colleges and Schools. (2003). Commission Statement on Assessment of
Student Learning. [Online]. http://www.ncacihe.org/resources/positionstatements/assessment/
2. Accrediting Commission
For Schools a Division of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
(1999). Bylaws-Accreditation Criteria. http://www.acsswasc.org
3. Travis, J. (1996). Meaningful
Assessment. Clearing House; 69:308-312.
4. Winsor, Pamela J. T.
(1998). A Guide to the Development of Professional Portfolios in the Faculty
of Education. [Online]. http://www.edu.uleth.ca/fe/ppd/contents.html
5. Educational Testing Service.
(2003). Major Field Tests. [Online]. http://www.ets.org/hea/mft/
6. Shaklee, B.D., Barbour,
N.E., Ambrose, R. and Hansford, S.J. (1997). Designing and using portfolios.
Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
7. The American Association
for Higher Education. (2003). Electronic Portfolios. [Online]. http://aahe.ital.utexas.edu/electronicportfolios/index.html
8. Commission on Accreditation
of Allied Health Education Programs. (2003). [Online]. http://www.caahep.org
9. American Society of Exercise
Physiologists. (2003). Guidelines for the Accreditation of Undergraduate
Programs in Exercise Physiology. [Online]. http://www.asep.org/accreditation
10. Wright State University.
(2003). Evaluation and Portfolio Resources. [Online]. http://e3-learning.wright.edu/port/
11. American Association
of Higher Education. http://www.aahe.org/
(2003). The Portfolio Clearinghouse. [Online]. http://www.aahe.org/teaching/portfolio_db.htm
12. Melograno, V. (1998).
Professional and Student Portfolios for Physical Education. Champaign,
IL: Human Kinetics.
13. Rolheiser, C., Bower,
B. and Stevahn, L. (2000). The Portfolio Organizer: Succeeding with Portfolios
in Your Classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum
Development.
