The Effect of Portfolio Assessments on Metacognitive Skills and on Attitudes toward a Course

Abstract

Citation: Evin-Gencel, İ. (2017). The effect of portfolio assessments on metacognitive skills and on attitudes toward a course. AbstractThe aim of this study is to determine through teacher candidates' thoughts the effects of a portfolio assessment implementation on their metacognitive skills and attitudes towards a course on measurement and evaluation.Exploratory sequential mixed-methods design is employed within the study. The pretest/posttest control group design was used in the qualitative phase of the study and a semi-structured interview form in the quantitative phase. The study was conducted with the participation of 42 teacher candidates. Data has been gathered using the metacognitive skills scale, an attitude scale on the measurement and evaluation course, and a semistructured interview form. While analyzing quantitative data, assumptions were detected using the SPSS 17.0 program (multi-normality, extreme values, emission, covariance matrices' homogeneity, linearity, absence of multi-link issues); descriptive statistics and MANCOVA analysis were also been made. The NVivo 8 program was used in the analyzing the quantitative data gathered from the semi-structured interview form. Portfolio assessments were determined to have positive effects on attendants' metacognitive skills and attitudes towards the course, and the implementation positively affected their attitudes. Within the learning process, requirements like guiding learners and evaluating learning tools at different levels put learning into practice, and the concepts of learning and evaluating identify with each other instead of competing (Giralt & Varela, 2015;Schön, 1987). On this basis and in accordance with the constructivist education philosophy, portfolio assessments are recommended for learners' knowledge, skill, and performance to promote their critical and reflective thinking skills (Bahous, 2008;Conrad, 2008). KeywordsA portfolio is defined as a collection of products that students produce during the learning process, and it creates an opportunity for learners, as well as their peers, families, and teachers, to observe and evaluate changes over time. Portfolios are also thought to be very important in terms of providing direct evidence for quality learning media and in-class activities created by teachers (Denney, Grier, & Buchanan, 2012;Ledoux & McHenry, 2006). Students gather their works systematically and methodically in a folder under predetermined criteria. In this way, aside from students' improvements over time, their strengths and weaknesses can also be observed.In regard to representing decisions about programs, the teaching process, and students, portfolios are significant as a flexible evaluation tool in which different students' products are used as indicators (Davies & Le Mahieu, 2003). Cameron, Tate, Macnaughton, and Politano (1998, p. 6) claim that learning takes place only by thinking about, problem-solving, constructing, regressing, transforming, reflecting on, taking responsibility for, questioning, answering, and imp...

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