Prospective teachers' views and experiences with e-portfolios

The use of electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) is a burgeoning area ofresearch, with many teacher education programs utilising as botha product of and a process of reflective practice. This case studyaimed to explore prospective primary teachers’ (students) percep-tions, perspectives and experiences of the use of e-portfolios, focus-ing on the affordances and limitations of using e-portfolios in InitialTeacher Education (ITE). Eleven second-year undergraduate stu-dents from secondary and primary ITE programs were interviewed.A reflexive thematic analysis was conducted on the transcripts, inwhich the module tutors’ experiences were also incorporated.Findings suggest that e-portfolios can be valuable agentic andreflective pedagogical tools that can scaffold learning, althoughwith a number of important caveats for future implementations.This paper speaks to the paucity of research that extends the viewof e-portfolios as simply repositories for content.ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 11 December 2023Accepted 27 August 2024KEYWORDSE-portfolio; reflection; initialteacher education; ScotlandIntroductionThe definition and application of reflection, especially in initial teacher education, is bothcontested and complex. Typically, Dewey’s (1933) book called How We Think and Schön’s(1983) work on becoming a reflective practitioner are regarded as the foundational textsin this area. Dewey defined reflection as ‘an operation in which facts on one side andmeaning on the other are elicited through constant interaction with each other’ (1933,p. 165). Schön (1983) further developed this idea, emphasising the importance of thedevelopment of ‘feeling for practice’ within specific contexts. He highlighted the signifi-cance of uncertainties in his discussion on reflection, noting that ‘it is our capacity to see-as and do-as that allows us to have a feel for problems that do not fit existing rules’ (1983,p.140). Similarly, LaBoskey (1993), who argued that reflection should clearly be an objec-tive for all teachers, stated that ‘reflection begins when an individual is perplexed oruncertain about an idea or situation and ends with a judgement’ (p.10). The process bywhich these judgements are formed and can be documented was further examined byCONTACT Sinem Hizli Alkan sinem.hizli-alkan@aru.ac.uk School of Education, Faculty of Arts, Humanities,Education and Social Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ, UKREFLECTIVE PRACTICEhttps://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2024.2398800© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) orwith their consent.