The purpose, content and development phases of a graduate entry ePortfolio in occupational therapy

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There is a trend in higher education towards the use of digital or electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) to collect evidence that demonstrates learning and skill development. There are very few papers that examine the key features and what to include in an occupational therapy ePortfolio. OBJECTIVE: This study presents an approach to developing a graduate entry ePortfolio to prepare occupational therapy students for transition to work. METHODS: An e-Delphi approach was used to gather the opinions of eight categories of experts. Three rounds of questionnaires were used to explore the purpose, terminology, content, structure, and development phases of a graduate entry ePortfolio. RESULTS: Key stakeholders indicated that the purpose of a professional portfolio is to create a professional profile, record experiences, skills and behaviours, and promote recording of lifelong learning and achievements. Delphi expert panel members emphasised the importance of personal choice in selecting evidence recorded in each collection, which must be guided by ethical decision-making. CONCLUSIONS:The findings of the study are important to students who wish to build an ePortfolio to organise and display evidence of competence prior to graduation in readiness to enter the workforce. The recommendations also will be of value to occupational therapy educators in curriculum development.

The use of ePortfolio in health profession education to demonstrate competency and enhance employability: A scoping review

“…Table 2 provides an overview of the 9 studies which were included. Of these studies, four were completed in the US, (Gaba, 2015;Karsten, 2012;Laux & Stoten, 2016;Patrick-Williams & Bennett, 2010) three in the UK, (David et al, 2001;Rees et al, 2005;Tailor et al, 2014) and two in Australia (Hume & Hamilton, 2019;Sidebotham et al, 2018).…”

“…Three studies focused on nursing students, (Karsten, 2012;Patrick-Williams & Bennett, 2010) three focused on medical students, (David et al, 2001;Rees et al, 2005;Tailor et al, 2014) one study was with dietetics students, (Gaba, 2015) one was with midwifery students, (Sidebotham et al, 2018) and one focused on occupational therapy stakeholders (Hume & Hamilton, 2019).…”

“…Three studies used survey design (Gaba, 2015;Patrick-Williams & Bennett, 2010;Tailor et al, 2014) and one used survey within a Delphi study, (Hume & Hamilton, 2019) one used survey and focus groups, (Sidebotham et al, 2018) one used case study design (David et al, 2001) and one used focus groups while also looking at the reliability and construct validity of the assessment tool used to assess students' ePortfolios (Rees et al, 2005). The remaining two papers did not describe a research design but described the ePortfolio implementation process (Karsten, 2012;Laux & Stoten, 2016).…”

“…All nine studies described the purpose of their ePortfolio as contributing to enhancing employability and/or demonstrating competency. Five studies detailed the components of their ePortfolio (David et al, 2001;Hume & Hamilton, 2019;Karsten, 2012;Laux & Stoten, 2016;Sidebotham et al, 2018) while the remaining four studies provided none or minimal details of the components of the ePortfolio.…”

The Implementation of Eportfolios in an Online Graduate Program

“…The advancement in technologies stimulated the use of electronic Portfolios, or ePortfolios, in academic settings and enabled students to move beyond the binder and paper portfolios to showcase their skills, knowledge, and competencies in digital forms (Farrell, 2020;Farrelly & Kaplin, 2019). Over the past decade, there has been a trend in higher education towards an increase in using ePortfolios globally (Hume & Hamilton, 2019;Madden et al, 2019;Roberts & Kirk, 2019). This trend is expected to continue to expand.…”