The Study
When implementing portfolio assessments, teachers often experience greater demands on their time and other stressful “barriers.” Assistant Professor Edward W. Wolfe, Chris W. T. Chiu, who at the time was a doctoral candidate, and Professor Mark D. Reckase surveyed 168 secondary teachers from around the United States involved in a 1-year portfolio implementation project in order to study their perceptions of implementing portfolio assessment.

The Findings
The teachers in the study taught English, mathematics and science, and were field testing a portfolio system know as PASSPORT developed by American College Testing. A portfolio generally consists of a collection of a student’s sample work accompanied by an explanation of why that work was chosen and what the samples tell about the student’s achievement. The researchers revealed that teachers who are less familiar with the concepts of portfolio assessment are more likely to be apprehensive about using them in their classrooms than teachers familiar with these ideas. Researchers also found that those teachers unfamiliar with using portfolios may initially underestimate the difficulties that they will have as they attempt to implement a portfolio assessment system. These types of teachers exhibited an increase in their apprehensiveness about using portfolios in the classroom after participating in the program. Teachers with prior experience with portfolios, meanwhile, showed a slight decrease in their levels of apprehension. The greatest concerns of the majority of teachers were time availability and the difficulty of scoring portfolios. These remained the biggest concerns both prior to and after the yearlong study. Finally, analyses of teachers’ responses to individual questionnaire items suggest that teachers’ initial impression of the difficulties associated with implementing a portfolio assessment system may not be completely accurate. For example, the results of the study suggest that PASSPORT teachers probably initially underestimated the amount of time required to implement and maintain a portfolio culture in their classrooms, as well as the extent to which portfolio assessment would require changes in curriculum and instruction.

What It Means to You
When implementing a portfolio assessment program, it may be necessary to provide additional assistance and training to teachers who have had little or no experience with portfolios and to those for whom the connection between course content and portfolios is less clear.  This may lessen their fears concerning how parents and other people will react to their use of portfolios and whether resources will be available to them. They would also benefit from the assistance of those educators with expertise in portfolio assessment, particularly when focused on planning and managing class time devoted it and exploring ways to best incorporate it into the daily presentation of curriculum.

For More Information
Wolfe, E., Chiu, C. & Reckase, M. (1999). Changes in secondary teachers’ perceptions of barriers to portfolio assessment. Assessing Writing 6(1), 85-105.

10/13/00

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