A Reflection on Portfolios vs. Comprehensive Exams
I had always hoped to complete a Master’s Degree. Through the years I envisioned myself completing a Thesis—I had never considered a Portfolio, nor for that matter a comprehensive exam. I understand that a writing a Thesis may not have provided the best opportunity to assess my abilities and I accept the changes willingly. It would be difficult to compare a thesis to a portfolio or comprehensive exam as assessment instruments, but the latter two can be compared effectively.
Comprehensive Exams
Comprehensive exams are easy to administer. They can be varied slightly from year to year with minimal effort and grading is simple. The test can be designed to show retention of specific concepts or ideas deemed important by the test creators. The exams are easily quantifiable for data purposes and are the most const effective instrument due to limited manpower requirements.
As a student, a comprehensive exam would provide me concern in several areas. First, the preparation for a comprehensive exam is very time consuming. As the Master’s Program is completed over several quarters, years for most of us, retaining specific information may be problematic. Studying for such an exam would be difficult. Second, the information in the exam may not be relevant to actual practice in the classroom. Lastly, comprehensive exams are not capable of portraying growth over time and, more importantly, there is no opportunity for student reflection on the importance of specific concepts and their growth in specific areas.
Portfolios
Portfolio-based assessment allows reviewers to see artifacts that represent the best practices of a specific student or program. Portfolios allow students a chance to show their knowledge in an interactive and visual manner. The use of portfolios provides for an enhanced focus on process and product rather than a student's abilities on a specific day. I appreciate that I can choose which artifacts that I feel best portray my work, or that I am most proud.
The use of portfolios for assessment is not without concerns. Artifacts may be a good indicator of specific abilities, but may not provide information on how much information was retained about specific content. Portfolios are difficult to grade and time consuming, for both student and instructor, to create. With their increased difficulties in creation and grading portfolios are not useful for timely feedback.
Analysis
Within the scope of this program I can confidently say that I am pleased to be completing a portfolio rather than a comprehensive exam. In the larger question should standardized testing be eliminated? Should portfolios be dismissed as ineffective means of evaluation? No. Neither option is valid, nor is abandoning one evaluation system for the other. For our educational system to thrive, we need testing instruments that are valid, clear, and test the learner on what is important about the information. Then, this information should be used to further the learner’s educational experience. We also need opportunities for learners to show what they know; whether it is through a portfolio of work or some other type of product. A portfolio gives us an indication of learning over time, whether it is one unit, a semester, a year, or an entire program of study. Exams give us an indication of a learner’s understanding of specific concepts and events. Neither instrument should be used in isolation. They both provide valuable information that can be used to further the learner’s educational experience. Focusing on one instrument over the other would mean that an important aspect of understanding would be missing.