UNIVERSITY OF CALOOCAN CITY

Biglang Awa St., Corner Catleya St., EDSA, Caloocan City

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

ASSESSMENT IN LEARNING II
SUBJECT CODE: MS 114
TOPIC OR LESSON 7: Portfolio Assessment Methods
WEEK: 8
SUB-TOPIC/S:
1.1. Features and Principles of Portfolio Assessment
1.2. Purposes of Portfolio Assessment
1.3. Essential Elements of the Portfolio

OVERVIEW OF THE TOPIC

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress and
achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting
contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student self-reflection.
Within the context of this definition, a portfolio continually grows and accumulates as the student
progresses in the particular learning task. Each addition to the portfolio is carefully planned and selected
by student and demonstrates his progress. In fact, the overall purpose of creating a portfolio is to enable
the student to demonstrate to others his/her learning progress. The greatest value of portfolios is that, in
building them, students become active participants in the learning process and its assessment. In sharp
contrast, students do not have any control or influence in traditional testing; the teacher decides on the
items to be included in the test. The sense of “ownership” on the part of the students that goes with
portfolio assessment makes it quite attractive to learners, in general.

LEARNING
OUTCOMES

Students are expected to understand the portfolio assessment – its features and principles, purposes,
essential elements, stages in implementation, types, assessment and evaluation

LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

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 a. Criticize portfolio assessment – features and principles, purposes, essential elements, stages in
implementation, types, assessment and evaluation.

ENGAGE

Do what is asked comprehensively.

1. What is “motivation”? Discuss the need theories on motivation: Maslow, Herzberg and ERG theories.
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2. Why are the “needs” as presented by Maslow arranged in a hierarchy? What is meant by hierarchy of
needs?
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3. What is “self-efficacy”? How does this concept figure in the educational measurement field? Why is
this concept important to teachers?
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EXPLORE
Share your own perspective on the statement below.

One of the more significant aspects of Portfolio assessment is its “Collaborative Approach” in which
students and teachers work together to identify especially to significant or important artifacts and
processes to be capture in the portfolio.

What is the implication of the above-mentioned topic to the following?

a. To you, as teacher
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b. To your student particularly with regards to their present academic performance

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c. For your students’ future

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EXPLAIN

FEATURES AND PRINCIPLES OF PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT

Portfolio assessment possesses several features and essential characteristics which are
enumerated below:

a) A portfolio is a form of assessment that students do together with their teachers.

The teachers guide the students in the planning, execution, and evaluation of the contents
of the portfolio. Together, they formulate the overall objectives for constructing the
portfolio. As such, students and teachers interact in every step of the process in
developing a portfolio.
b) A portfolio represents a selection of what the students believe are best included from
among the possible collection of things related to the concept being studied. It is the
teachers’ responsibility to assist the students in actually choosing from among a possible
set of choices to be included in the portfolio. However, the final selection should be done
by what the students themselves want since the portfolio represents what the students
believe are important considerations.
c) A portfolio provides samples of the student’s work which show growth over time.
By reflecting on their own learning (self-assessment), students begin to identify the
strengths and weaknesses in their work. These weaknesses then become improvement
goals.
d) The criteria for selecting and assessing the portfolio contents must be clear to the
teacher and the students at the outset of the process. If the criteria are not clear at the
beginning, then there is a tendency to include unessential components in the portfolio and
to include those which happen to be available at the time the portfolio is prepared. At
each step of the process, the students need to refer to the agreed set of criteria for the
construction and development of the portfolio.

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PURPOSES OF PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT

Why should we resort to portfolio assessment methods? Portfolio assessment gas several
purposes and rationale for its use.

First, portfolio assessment matches assessment to teaching. The final outputs to be assessed are
products of classroom discussions and classroom work and are not simple diversions from the tedium of
classroom activities. Unlike test items which mainly measures cognitive skills, portfolio assessment can
assess other components of the students’ formed abilities based on classroom discussions.

Second, portfolio assessment has clear goals. In fact, they are decided on at the beginning of
instruction and are clear to teacher and students alike. In cognitive testing, the objectives are set at
the beginning but the actual items may or may not reflect achievement of such objectives. In portfolio
assessment, however, the students control the items to be included and therefore are assured that the goals
are achieved.

Third, portfolio assessment gives a profile of learners’ abilities in terms of depth, breadth and
growth. In terms of depth, portfolio assessment enables the students to demonstrate quality work done
without pressure and constraints of time present in traditional testing through the help of resources such
as reference materials and the help of other students. In terms of breadth, portfolio assessment can show
a wide range of skills to be demonstrated in the final output. Finally, in terms of growth, portfolio
assessment shows efforts to improve and develop and clearly demonstrates students’ progress over time.

Fourth, portfolio assessment is a tool for assessing the variety of skills not normally testable in a
single setting for traditional testing. The portfolio can show written, oral and graphic outputs of
students in a variety of ways which demonstrate skills developed by the students.

Fifth, portfolio assessment develops awareness of students’ own learning. Students have to reflect on
their own progress and the quality of their work in relation to known goals. This is achieved at each stage
of the process since the students continually refer to the set of goals and objectives set at the beginning.

Sixth, portfolio assessment caters to individuals in a heterogenous class. Such flexibility is attributed
to the fact that portfolio assessment is open-ended so that students can demonstrate their abilities on their
own level and caters to differential learning styles and expression of varying strengths.

Seventh, portfolio assessment develops social skills. Students interact with other students in the
development of their own portfolios. Sometimes, they are assessed on work done in groups or in pairs
so that they necessarily have to interact and collaborate to complete the tasks.

Eighth, portfolio assessment develops independent and active learners. Students must select and
justify portfolio choices; monitor progress and set learning goals. Traditional testing cannot achieve this
educational objective no matter how skilfully the tests are constructed.

Ninth, portfolio assessment can improve motivation for learning and thus achievement. When
students are empowered to prove their own achievement and worth they become highly motivated to
pursue the learning tasks. It is when they lose this feeling of empowerment that they feel inadequate and
become less motivated as in traditional classroom testing.

Tenth, portfolio assessment provides opportunity for student-teacher dialogue. It enables the teacher
to get to know every student. Moreover, portfolio assessment promotes joint goal-setting and negotiation
of grades which can never happen in traditional testing.

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ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE PORTFOLIO

Every portfolio must contain the following essential elements:

1. Cover letter “About the author” and “What my portfolio about my progress as a learner”
(written at the end, but put at the beginning). The cover letter summarizes the evidence of a
student’s learning and progress.
2. Table of contents with numbered pages.
3. Entries both core (items students have to include) and optional (items of student’s choice). The
core elements will be required for each student and will provide a common base from which to
make decisions on assessment. The optional items will allow the folder to represent the
uniqueness of each student. Students can choose to include “best” pieces of work, but also a
piece of work which gave trouble or one that was less successful, and give reasons why.
4. Dates on all entries, to facilitate proof of growth over time.
5. Drafts of aural/oral and written products and revised versions; i.e., first drafts and
corrected/revised versions.
6. Reflections can appear at different stages in the learning process (for formative and or summative
purposes.) and at the lower levels can be written in the Mother Tongue or by students who find it
difficult to express themselves in English.

For each item – a brief rationale for choosing the item should be included. This can relate to students’
performance, to their feelings regarding their progress and/or themselves as learners. Students can choose
to reflect upon some or all of the following:
 What did I learn from it?
 What did I do well?
 Why (based on the agreed teacher-student assessment criteria) did I choose this item?
 What do I want to improve in the item?
 How do I feel about my performance?
 What were the problem areas?

ELABORA
TE questions comprehensively.
Answer the following

1. What is portfolio assessment?

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2. What are the features and principles of portfolio? Explain each based on your own understanding.
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EVALUAT
E
What are the purposes of portfolio assessment? Using a graphic organizer, discuss the merits of
portfolio assessment over traditional testing.

SCOR
RUBRIC FOR EVALUATION E
3– The explanation is 2 – The explanation 1– The explanation is 0.5 – The 0–
RELEVAN

directly relevant to is relevant to the quite relevant to the explanation is not Has no
the topic. Every detail topic. Most of the topic. Only few of the clear and has a very explanation
CE

points toward the details contribute to details contribute to rough transition of

topic. the development of the development of the idea. The details are
the topic. topic. not relevant to the
topic.
3– The explanation 2– The explanation 1– The explanation 0.5 – The 0–
EVIDEN

ARGUM

shows at least 9 shows at least 6 to 8 shows at 3 to 5 explanation shows at Has no

CE/

correct/valid correct/valid correct/valid evidences most 2 correct/valid explanation

evidences to support evidences to support to support his/her evidences to support
his/her answer. his/her answer. answer. his/her answer.

2– The explanation is 1.5 – The 1– The explanation is 0.5 – The 0–

CLARITY

clear, has a very good explanation is clear, somewhat clear and explanation is not Has no
flow of discussion, has a good transition, has a rough transition clear and has a very explanation
every detail is most of the details from one idea to rough transition of
connected to each are connected to each another. ideas.
other. other.
2– The explanation 1.5 – The 1– The explanation 1.5 – The 0–
TECHNI-
CALITY

has no error in explanation has 1 to has 3 to 4 errors in explanation has at Has no

grammar, spelling, 2 errors in grammar, grammar, spelling, and least 5 errors in explanation
and punctuations. spelling, and punctuations. grammar, spelling,
punctuations. and punctuations.

OVERALL SCORE:

REFERENC
ES
Rosita L. Navarro, Ph.D., Rosita De Guzman-Santos, Ph.D (2013) Authentic Assessment of Student Learning
Outcomes- Assessment of Learning 2 (2nd Edition)

Rosita De Guzman-Santos, Ph.D. (2007) Advanced Methods in Educational Assessment and Evaluation-
Assessment of Learning 2

Paulson F.L., P.R. Paulson and C.A. Meyer. (1991) “What makes a portfolio a portfolio?” Educational Leadership.
February

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 ADDITIONAL
MATERIALS

Portfolio Assessment
https://www.slideshare.net/janehbasto/portfolio-assessment-37972154

PREPARED BY:

Ms. Desiree S. Isidro Ms. Liezl Baja Ms. Monique Patal

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