Evolution of portfolio assessment: A focus on its transition, integration, research trends, and implications
By Dr Ricky Lam
Portfolio assessment has been widely adopted in general and English as a second language education for nearly four decades. Despite its significance and popularity, practitioners and scholars alike remain dubious about its usefulness, practicality, and reliability to be applied as an alternative in assessments. To dispel stakeholders’ ambiguities and scepticisms, this paper critically surveys four key domains of portfolio assessment, which could equip frontline practitioners and assessment researchers with additional instructional repertoires for upgrading instruction and cutting-edge research agendas for conducting portfolio-related studies, respectively. These four domains entail: (1) affordances and challenges when print-based portfolio programs transition into electronic ones within multiple settings; (2) applications of tried-and-tested strategies to facilitate portfolio integration into English curricula; (3) systematic reviews that unpack future research agendas to make original contributions to portfolio assessment scholarship; and (4) a cautionary note that alerts aspiring teachers and scholars when (e-)Portfolio assessment is utilized for teaching and research in a wider English as a second language context. The key takeaways from the paper are twofold, providing audience members with (i) a renewed perspective of how they can effectively conduct and research portfolio assessment in the post-pandemic era, and (ii) up-to-date and practical resources, for instance, blurbs on common e-Portfolio tools, portfolio application websites, selected bibliography (journal articles and monographs), and online tutorials about e-Portfolio set-up.
Keywords: portfolio assessment; alternative assessment; print and electronic portfolios; second language learning
Biography
Dr Ricky Lam is Associate Professor in the Department of Education Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China. He is Associate Editor of Frontiers in Education and has served in several international editorial boards. His research interests include L2 writing assessment, digital portfolios, and language assessment literacy. His publications have appeared in Language Assessment Quarterly, System, RELC Journal, Assessing Writing, Language Testing, TESOL Quarterly, and other SSCI- and SCOPUS-indexed journals. Ricky is the sole author of Integrating e-Portfolios into L2 Classrooms: Education for future (Multilingual Matters, 2024).
