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.

2.5.1 Basic Principle of Assessment in Portfolio Assessment Model

Portfolio assessment model relates to a number of assessment basic principles (Budimansyah, 2002). The assessment basic principles are:

(1)   Principle of process and product assessment

Portfolio assessment model applies process and product of teaching and learning. The assessment of learning processes are got from anecdotal record about the students’ attitudes in learning, their enthusiastic, and many others. Another aspect of process assessment is assessing structured task from teacher whether the task is done well and seriously or not. Beside that, process assessment can be done by viewing the report of the students’ activity outside of school whether they have activity that supporting their learning process or not.

(2)   Principle of periodic and continual assessment

Assessment should be done periodic and continue. Periodic assessment is conducted to facilitate the organization of learning results. While the goal of continual assessment is to view the growth and development of the students’ learning experienced.

The examples of periodic assessment are having formative test and summative test, having structured task at the end of a chapter, having anecdotal record in every meeting, and having the report of student’s activity out of school once in a month. It is doing continually from the first meeting until the end.

(3)   Principle of fair assessment

In giving assessment should pay attention to individual differences. All of indicators in portfolio assessment are taken into consideration and each of them is giving score, so the result is describing the process. In other words, the student who has good learning experienced, he/she will have big opportunity to have success.

(4)   Principle of social implication assessment

By learning the students should come up with such asocial implication, that means meaningful for the others. Learning is not only get a good grade or pass the examination, but it should have implication toward the students’ attitudes and skills. Portfolio assessment is not limited in assess cognitive aspect, but also affective and psychomotor, involves social implication. This learning experience is functionally needed in real life in the future. To enter real life system is needed provisions, not only a mark or a piece of licensed.

2.5.2 Indicator of Portfolio Assessment

There is no standard form of portfolio assessment, but generally it must content cognitive, affective, and psychomotor area. Teacher can improve it according to the needs (Budimansyah, 2002: 118). From the indicators, teacher can make a result fairly.

Portfolio may be contains of two subfolders, they are subfolder of collection of the student’s works and subfolder of documentation of the students score during the learning process. Portfolio’s content can be varied based on the goal, level of the students, and kinds of activity at class.

Format of the assessment in portfolio for English subject that is used by the teacher in this research contains of:

1.      Documentation of Formative and Summative Test

Kind of Test	No	Date	Theme	Score	Teacher’s Sign	Note
FORMATIVE	1. 2. 3. Etc.
SUMMATIVE
AVERAGE

Source: Budimansyah, 2002

2.      Documentation of Student’s Work

No.	Kinds of Task	Assessment’s Aspect	Score		Teacher’s Sign	Note
			First	Revision
1.		Understanding: How well the student’s understanding toward the task
		Argumentation: How well student’s argumentation in solving the problem
		Explanation: ·   arranged well ·   written well ·   easy to understand
		Information: ·   accurate ·   complete ·   important
2.		Understanding
		Argumentation
		Explanation
		Information
Etc.		Understanding
		Argumentation
		Explanation
		Information

Source: Budimansyah, 2002

Rusoni (2001) gives an example of rubric scoring that can be used for giving score to the student’s work:

Table 2.2 Portfolio Rubric Scoring

SCORE	DESCRIPTION
8,1 – 10	·      Student clearly understand about the task ·      Student can give perfect argumentation in finishing the task ·      Student can organize the explanation sharply ·      Student can give accurate, complete and important information
6,6 – 8,0	·      Student needs a little help to understand the task ·      Student can give good argumentation but still need a help ·      Student needs a help to organize the explanation ·      Student can give good information
5,6 – 6,5	·      The student needs enough help to understand the task ·      Student can give argumentation if there is a help ·      Student needs a help to organize the explanation ·      There are many fault in giving information
4,1 – 5,5	·      Student depends on teacher’s help to understand the task ·      Student need a help to give argumentation ·      Student always need a help to organize the explanation ·      The Information is lack and there are many fault
0 – 4,0	·      Student can not understand the task ·      Student can not give argumentation in finishing the task ·      Student can not organize the explanation ·      The information is wrong and has no correlation with the task

Source: http://www.puskur.or.id/data/buku_PBK.pdf

3.      Documentation of Anecdotal Record

No.	The Appeared Attitude	Assessment (Positive (+) /Negative (-) )												Teacher’s Sign
		August				Sept				Etc.
		1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4
1	Enthusiastic
2	Actively to ask and answer questions
3	Enjoy to read at library
4	Well-dressed
5	Politeness
6	Snobbish
7	Lazy
8	Etc.

Adapted from: Budimansyah, 2002

4.      Documentation of Activity Out of School

No.	Kinds of Activity	Assessment’s Aspect	Score	Teacher’s Sign	Note
1.	Writing an essay for “Mading”	Significantly: How close its mean to English subject
		Intensity: How is the intensity of the activity
		Frequency: How often is the activity done
Etc.

Source: Budimansyah, 2002

5.      Self and Peer-Assessment

Example:

 

Source: J. Michael O’Malley and Lorraine Valdez Pierce, 1996:41-42