The document discusses a study that used eportfolios and volunteer coaches to help students reflect on skills gained from extracurricular activities. It found that: 1) Coaches adopted various roles like mentor, tutor, or activity provider to support students' reflection and skill development. 2) The eportfolio was useful for organizing coach feedback and assets to create a final presentation, but some students and coaches struggled with reflective writing. 3) Allowing coaches autonomy led to diverse approaches, but coaches with relevant experience provided valuable career perspectives for students.

1. The Use of an ePortfolio in Assessing
Informal Learning
Gordon Joyes gordon.joyes@nottingham.ac.uk
Emma Crawford e1.crawford@qut.edu.au
Angela Smallwood angela.smallwood@nottingham.ac.uk

2. Context
 The module
 The inquiry
The role of
 Coach and value
 The eportfolio
Results and implications

3. Context
• The Centre for Integrative Learning
(CIL) module within the Nottingham
Advantage Award an extra-curricular
award. 10-credit module – 30 credits
needed for the award
• To participate students needed to be
involved in extra-curricular activities in
which they achieved employability skills
over two semesters.

4. What is novel about this student
award module ?
 Support for reflection is offered in the initial
stage to assist with goal setting and skills
analysis
 Use of volunteer coaches from across the
University
 The module uses an eportfolio towards
assessment
 Final presentation to employers developed from
the e-portfolio

5. The Pilot
• Piloted in one semester in a student hall of
residence
• Student halls are run by JCR – an elected
committee of students (our trial group)
• Pastoral care is undertaken by a warden
and tutor (our coaches)

6. The inquiry
The research set out to explore the role of an eportfolio
in supporting student understanding of the value of
their informal learning for employers and focussed on
the following research questions.
• What is the value of an eportfolio tool in supporting
reflection in this context?
• What roles did staff volunteers coaches adopt and
how did they develop an understanding of what
constitutes an adequate input.
• How important a part did the eportfolio tool play in
learners’ processes to capture value from their
informal learning?

7. The module phases

8. The inquiry: The students and coaches
• 32 students began and finished phase one
and 11 continued through phases two and
three to completion.
• The module attracted 42 volunteer coaches
of which 32 (mainly admin staff and hall
tutors) were selected, 11 to the assessment.
• Extra-curricular activities included university
clubs and committees, literacy volunteering in
schools (home and abroad), work with the
Red Cross and British-Chinese cultural
exchange.

9. Interaction Examples
 Student X Sent an email following a successful job application
stating how useful the eportfolio had been in completing the forms
and preparing for the interview. Her examples had all been drawn
from her extra curricular activities rather than academic study.
 Coach X Provided a reference for a counselling job
 Student Y I no longer think of my involvement in hockey as simply
team work. I have been able to analyse the development of a wide
range of skills including leadership, time management, negotiation
and interpersonal skills
 Coach Y There was much more activity in the eportfolio following the
coach moderation meeting, which highlighted the importance of the
coach’s role in ensuring the final presentation met the module aim.

10. The inquiry: The data
Naturally occurring data (Bryman & Burgess, 1994) was used:
• Pre- and post- training participant questionnaires;
• a coach experience questionnaire;
• coach moderation meeting audio recordings;
• employer feedback to participants.
The e-portfolios were not available for use except for coach selected
and shared assets used within the moderation meeting and six final
presentations where permissions were given for research use.
Further data gathering would have been intrusive as it might have
affected retention on the voluntary award and this posed some
problems in relation to answering the research questions – to some
extent overcome by data and method triangulation

11. The evidence: The coach’s role
As well as the more common and expected coach as critical
friend supporting reflection and goal setting some of the other
roles played were:
• coach as tutor – skills training
• coach as mentor – sharing experiences
• coach identifying with students lack of engagement with the e-
portolio
• coach as e-portfolio phobic - where the opportunity to support
the student in reflective writing was passed up in favour of a
face to face discussion
• coach as potential validator of the activity – where the coach
felt their role to be one in which they should visit the activity
site in a response to the student sharing aspects of their work
and modelling the staff role they held at the University
• coach as extra-curricular activity provider – where the coach
provided an extra-curricular activity themselves to support
student reflection

12. Coach as extra-curricular activity provider
Participant Y was involved in a small group involved in British–
Chinese culture exchange through visits and sharing cultural
experiences
Images not available for non-research
public viewing

13. A coach’s view about their approach
‘I rather followed my own experience rather
than fully engaging in the e-element of the
programme. I didn’t use the booklet much
until I attended the session with the other
coaches and I think this was partly because I
was off on my own agenda.. AND We (the
participant and coach) have discussed a
wider range of developmental issues rather
than keeping to the task. The other coaches
seemed to have been much more focussed
on the task.’

14. The coach roles
It seems that the purpose, context and personalities
involved led to mentoring (and coaching) being
‘essentially idiosyncratic’ (Hawkey, 1997:332)
In Phase 2: critical friend + other roles (tended not
to read documentation about the role)
In Phase 3 : critical friend - supporting the
development of the presentation and assessing this
(used the documentation)

15. What makes a good coach?
ALL students rated their coaches inputs highly – so all
coaches were ‘good’ coaches.
• In this context it was important coaches had domain
knowledge (members of the WoW community) - they
knew what employability skills would be seen to be of
value by an employer -- this meant their questioning
and feedback would support the module aims and
would be seen as authentic by the student.
• There was a need to allow these professionals to have
the freedom to use their professional skills and
experience to engage with the students in ways that
they felt that were appropriate.

16. The role of the e-portfolio
A trigger for interaction between the
coach and the learner
Supporting the formative ‘assessment’
process
Ongoing repository of assets, reflections
and feedback
Supported the creation of the final
presentation to employers from assets
and ongoing reflections

17. E-portfolio use issues
 Phase 1 training necessary - pedagogic, technical …
 Scheduled coach meetings meant e-portfolio was used
and feedback was provided – important organiser
 Offered flexibility ( f2f or online feedback) this can be
seen as +ve and –ve
 Coaches felt they needed to know more about the
potential of what could be done in the e-portfolio but…
time
 Support needed for reflective writing
 Invisibility of what actually goes on in the e-portfolio

18. The implications
 The need for feedback by authentic others
 The need to allow the disruptive nature of giving
the coaches autonomy
 Difficult to get evidence of the ways reflection is
supported in meetings and in the e-portfolio.
 Tension between oral reflection and written
refection
 Evidence of prospective reflection being
important in shaping goal setting and
perspective of employability - justifies this
model.