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Portfolio assessment and self-directed learning.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Portfolios have been heralded as an assessment method to enhance students' self-directed learning. This pilot study was done to better understand the nature of such issues from the perspective of four physicians who had completed a showcase portfolio requirement during their graduate medical training. The physicians were interviewed 1-2 years after completing the portfolio. Results from survey data and from content analysis of semi-structured interview responses suggest that a showcase portfolio tool may be most influential on physician's skills and abilities to critically analyze their own clinical performance.

Introduction

Several recent authors have discussed compelling ideas about how educators could implement and use tools such as student portfolio assignments to help develop critical thinkers and self-directed learners (Mentkowski, 1991, Mentkowski, et al., 2000; O'Sullivan et al., 2002). Within the realm of postsecondary health professions education, such assessment approaches are appealing because they are an authentic method that can be used to promote a students' self-reflective analysis of their performance within the health practice contexts in which they gain much of their clinical training (Spencer & Jordan, 1999). Another appeal is that portfolio tools can be structured to provide information that will simultaneously help educational leaders meet institutional and/or program improvement objectives and goals. There is research evidence to suggest that portfolio tools are feasible to implement in psychiatry residency training programs (O'Sullivan et al., 2002). There is also evidence that portfolios may be useful for evaluating a residents' performance as well as program improvement (Jarvis et al., 2004; McClain et al., 2004).

The intent of the study described in this paper was to initiate our understanding of whether and how completing a showcase portfolio requirement (that serves primarily as a program assessment tool rather than a student learning portfolio, per se) might influence aspects of self-directed learning for recent psychiatry resident graduates. Few studies have examined the influence of assessment methods such as portfolios on self-directed learning in residents. More generally, empirical evaluations of the impact of assessment methods on student performance have been relatively rare as well (Peterson & Einarson, 2001). To date, most of the research on self-directed learning in medical education has focused on the relative impact of elements of the curriculum on self-directed learning indicators (e.g., traditional didactic lectures vs. PBL) (Ozuah et al., 2001; Shin et al., 1993). As a whole, this research has produced mixed findings (see Schmidt, 2000).

A useful conceptual framework of self-directed learning in clinical practice has been previously described by Harvey et al. (2003) and Miflin (2000), who suggest that the essential components of self-directed learning for clinicians include having the motivation and ability to self-assess learning needs, the ability to efficiently locate and use a range of appropriate resources...

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