PED 108: Assessment of Learning 2

Activity/Assignment

Name: Dandy R. Lood Jr. BSED ENG 2

Date: 07/02/23

THE DISADVANTAGES OF PORTFOLIO

A portfolio or most specifically, a student’s portfolio is a collection of a student's work that

demonstrates their skills, achievements, and progress over time. It can include work samples, projects,
photographs, writing, journaling, and artwork. Portfolios can be used as an alternative assessment tool
to more formal methods, and can also be a communication device for parents, teachers, and students.
Portfolios have a lot of help and advantages to both students and teachers. According to Thomasenia L.
Adams on 1998 Portfolio can present a wide perspective of learning process for students and enables
continuous feedback for them. It also enables students to have a self-assessment for their studies and
learning, and to review their progress according to Allan A. De Fina in 1992. Moreover, according to
Harol Asturias in 1994 & Stephen J. Micklo in 1997, Portfolios are strong devices that help students to
gain the important abilities such as self-assessment, critical thinking and monitoring one’s own learning.
Furthermore, according to Birgin in 2007, Mokhtari and others in 1996, portfolio provide pre-service
teacher assessing their own learning and growth, and help them become self-directed and reflective
practitioners, and contribute them the individual and professional developments.

However, portfolio does not only have a good attribute or have an advantage. It also has many
disadvantages. Based on my research, the first disadvantage of portfolio is in assessing students
unjustifiably. According to Cicmanec & Viecknicki in 1994, multiple choice items were type of
assessments that was better seen as good and fair in assessing the students’ performance over to
portfolios. In addition, according to Stecher in 1998, & Koretz et al. in 1994, some teachers see portfolios
as a worthwhile burden with tangible results in instruction and student motivation. Teachers also report
difficulties implementing portfolio assessment successfully in their own classroom due to its complexity
(Calfee & Perfumo, 1993; Padilla et al., 1996) Moreover, another disadvantage of using portfolio is very
time consuming for teachers to score students’ works and to assess students’ performance over time in
the crowded classroom (Birgin, 2006). Furthermore, in the students’ side, according to Maarten J. Brown
in his paper: The Positives and Negatives of Student Portfolio Assessments N/D, the downside of Student
Portfolio is its low reliability of scoring. To overcome this downside, it is important to use structured
rubrics in the tests of the learners' assignments. Furthermore, a good student portfolio comes with a
considerable effort and commitment from all individuals involved. Regards to grading a SP, this can be
challenging since every learner is going to be different. A solid rubric can help a teacher evaluate the
content of a SP. However, there are plenty of room for subjectivity when comparing one SP to another,
thus making it difficult to assign grades equally.

To conclude, student portfolios are served as comprehensive collections of showcasing a

student's progress and achievements, offering a holistic view of their learning journey. They provide
opportunities for self-assessment, reflection, and the development of critical thinking skills. However,
despite their benefits, portfolios can be challenging to implement effectively due to issues such as
subjectivity in assessment, time constraints for teachers, and concerns about reliability and fairness in
evaluation.