Commentary on Nairn S, O'Brien E, Traynor V, Williams G, Chapple M & Johnson S (2006) Student nurses' knowledge, skills and attitudes towards the use of portfolios in a school of nursing. Journal of Clinical Nursing15, 1509-1520.

摘要

My heart always sinks when, as an external examiner to nursing programmes, I know that I am to be faced with student portfolios. Sometimes these are sent to me and arrive by the truckload or I am locked in a room at the institution where I am an examiner and faced with piles of multicoloured folders of varying shapes and sizes that are impossible to stack on the desk and which vary so much in content and style that it is very hard to draw conclusions and make comparisons. Lest this sounds like the confessions of an external examiner; it has to be said that there are usually some distinguishing features such as the neatness with which the portfolio has been prepared, the organization of the portfolio and the style in which it has been written. The reflective aspects are also a good indicator of how much the student has thought about his or her practice and its implications. Nevertheless, I continue to have doubts about the reliability and validity of portfolios, not as a method of learning, but as a means of assessing student learning. I gave voice to this a few years ago with colleagues Gannon et al. (2001) and I see many of the same issues reflected in the paper by Nairn et al. (2006).