Electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) are commonly positioned to show evidence of student learning with formative and summative assessment benefits. At the University of Auckland teacher education program, two e-portfolio systems were adopted to document preservice teacher's course work and to attest to the Graduating Teacher Standards. This article seeks to (a) evaluate e-portfolio systems, (b) compare the MyPortfolio (Mahara) and Google Sites systems, and (c) provide recommendations for best practice in system use. The software system comparison between the MyPortfolio (Mahara) and Google Sites system was based on the essential technology features for system use. User satisfaction and usability data were obtained through self-reported surveys ( N = 192). Open-ended questions ( N = 192) and semistructured interviews with a sample of course participants ( N = 12) ascertained the best practice approach for system use. Mean scores were higher for the MyPortfolio (Mahara) system. One-way analysis of variance indicated that the differences were statistically significant.
Software that easily helps higher education instructors to remove poor quality items and set appropriate grade boundaries is generally lacking. To address these challenges, the SmartStandardSet system provides a graphical-user interface for removing defective items, weighting student scores using a two-parameter model IRT score analysis, and a mechanism for standard-setting. We evaluated the system through a series of six interviews with teachers and six focus groups involving 19 students to understand how key stakeholders would view the use of the tool in practice. Generally, both groups of participants reported high levels of feasibility, accuracy, and utility in SmartStandardSet’s statistical scoring of items and score calculation for test-takers. Teachers indicated the data displays would help them improve future test items; students indicated the system would be fairer and would motivate greater effort on more difficult test items. However, both groups had concerns about implementing the system without institutional policy endorsement. Students specifically were concerned that academics may set grade boundaries on arbitrary and invalid grounds. Our results provide useful insights into the perceived benefits of using the tool for standard setting, and suggest concrete next steps for gaining wider acceptance that will be the focus of future work.
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