Content area
Abstract
Current educational reform efforts include alternative assessment procedures, such as portfolio assessment. A growing number of teachers, administrators, and other policy-makers are advocating increased use of portfolio assessment to replace or supplement current assessment practices. Preliminary research from statewide portfolio programs and other studies highlight the complex nature of portfolios; their problematic utilization; and difficulties with the reliability-validity, and interpretation of portfolios.
While portfolio assessment is advocated for many assessment and instructional purposes, little validation of these purposes exists. Objective, empirical studies of the use of portfolios in classrooms, where actual practice occurs, are few. The professional literature is replete with testimonial, self-report data by individual classroom teachers. These accounts seemingly indicate that portfolio use is growing across teachers and schools. At the same time, many professionals are advocating more inclusionany practices in the general education environment for students with disabilities. Little is known about the practice and impact of portfolio assessment on these students, for whom assessment plays a critical role throughout their educational careers. The present research investigated classroom practices and perceived practices in the use of portfolios for written language, the most common application of portfolios, for students in general education, as well as those with identified mild disabilities. Survey information was gathered on reported uses, purposes, contents, and evaluation criteria of writing portfolios from 101 general and special education teachers at the middle school level. Data on educator concerns and attitudes toward portfolio assessment was also collected.
Descriptive and inferential analyses were used to examine similarities and differences between general and special educators, and those who use and do not use writing portfolios. Results suggest that middle level educators represented in this study view writing portfolios as most valuable for student involvement and metacognitive learning. General educators were more likely than special educations to endorse writing samples demonstrating a range of writing skills as portfolio content items. No other statistically significant differences were found between groups of interest. Implications for educators and future research are discussed.
