Portfolios in pre-registration podiatry -What lessons can we learn from their use in nursing education?

摘要

The use of portfolios as an assessment and developmental tool for placement-based clinical learning is relatively new in pre-registration podiatry. In order to aid their implementation in podiatry education, this article reviews and examines the lessons learned from portfolio use in pre-registration nursing, where portfolios have been in use for quite a few years. Portfolios, in addition to providing carefully selected examples of achieved learning outcomes, encourage both personal and professional development through the process of reflective practice and critical analysis. However, their use in nursing shows that there is a clear conflict between portfolios' reflective learning value and their summative assessment. In addition to discussing portfolio assessment and its associated reliability/validity issues, this article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of portfolios. In order to overcome some of these disadvantages, it provides advice concerning the successful use of portfolios. In particular, we will see that crucial to the portfolio's success is the student-tutor relationship, as well as clear guidelines, training, support and feedback for students and assessors.