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Portfolio Assessment
There are many theorists who give definition about portfolio. According to Yasin (2001), in the beginning, portfolio is only collection of task, learning experience, exhibition, and assessment of own work result in art areas. From the collection, teacher assesses painting skill of the students. So that assessment result is not only from final test. Final test sometime is not shows the student’s ability because the students’ work at the final test can be influenced by the situation and condition at the time, for example the students is in pain or less concentration, so they can’t make good work.
Paulson et all in Kemp and Toperoff (1998) give definition about portfolio:
Portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student’s efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas. The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit, and evidence of student self-reflection.
In this way a portfolio is a living, growing collection of a student’s work. Each addition is carefully selected by the student for a specific reason which he will explain. The overall purpose of the portfolio is to enable the student to demonstrate to others learning and progress. The greatest value of portfolio is that, in building them, students become active participants in the learning process and its assessment.
Arter & Spandel in Luitel (2002) state the notion of portfolio. The literary meaning of the term ‘portfolio’ is a collection of the past work. However, in the context of assessment, portfolio does not represent only a mere collection of the past work. The Northwest Evaluation Association urges that the portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student’s effort, progress, or achievement in given areas. According to Simon and Forgette-Giroux in Luitel (2002), the portfolio is a cumulative and ongoing collection of entries that are selected following a given framework, and reflected upon by the student, to assess his/her development of a specific but complex competency. Similarly, portfolio is also known as a record of the child’s process of learning that portrays
the learner’s style of thinking, questioning, analysis, production, creation, and the like (Grace, in Luitel, 2002). Commonly speaking, the portfolio can be viewed as a systematic and organized collection of evidence used by the teacher and student to monitor the growth of student’s knowledge, skills, and attitudes in a specific content area.
According to Genesee and Upshur (in Brown, 2004:256), a portfolio is a purposeful collection of students’ work that demonstrates their efforts, progress, and achievements in given areas. Portfolios include materials such as: essays and compositions in draft and final forms; reports, project outlines; poetry and creative prose; artwork, photos, newspaper or magazine clippings; audio and/or video recording of representations or demonstrations; journals, diaries, and other personal reflections; test, test scores, and written homework exercises; notes on lectures; and self and peer-assessments (comments, evaluation, and checklists).
It can be summarized that portfolio is the collection of student work and documentation about the students learning progress (i.e., the students’ task, test, performance, and activity) regularly and continuously. Portfolio can be in form of the students’ work, the students’ answer to the teacher’s questions, anecdotal record of the students, report of the students’ activity, and the students’ composition or journal.
