ePortfolio Practice and Transfer of Learning Within a First-Year Writing Program

1
ePortfolio Practice and Transfer of Learning
Within a First-Year Writing Program Center for
Writing and Rhetoric Guy Krueger and Karen
Forgette
go
RESEARCH STUDY CONTEXT
RATING SESSIONS
RESEARCH QUESTION
INTERVIEWS
Students in the first-year writing sequence
compose an ePortfolio reflecting on their first-
and second-semester courses.
First-semester ePortfolio reflection prompt
excerpts invoking Salomon and Perkins
conditions Which one (1) course learning
outcome would you identify as being the most
significant in your personal learning experience
this semester? Which one (1) assignment completed
for this course would you point to as most
significant in your progress toward this
outcome? As you compose your response, be sure
to consider how your work toward this outcome may
help you in other contexts outside of this class.
You might consider what this learning experience
means to you now or what it might mean to you in
the future. You might consider if this experience
has led to a change in your thinking. Second-se
mester ePortfolio reflection prompt excerpts
invoking Salomon and Perkins conditions The
text should convey careful reflection on your
learning and explain the significance of the
artifact (or artifacts) in your
ePortfolio. You may select more than one
artifact and these additional artifacts may come
from anywhere (WRIT 102, WRIT 101, other classes
at Ole Miss, high school, or personal writings).
However, your ePortfolio reflection should
discuss the significance of each artifact.
In Spring 2012, we rated a random, multi-section
sample of 146 student ePortfolio reflections to
assess evidence of transfer. Within each
reflection, raters looked for language suggestive
of transfer, and when such examples were found
they categorized the references according to
where the learning originated high school, a CWR
course, a non-CWR University of Mississippi
course, or some other setting. Each identified
example was assigned one origin source from among
the four possible. Furthermore, each example of
transfer was examined for the particulars it
might contain, and these were categorized in
terms of origin, destination, details, and
evaluation. These particular components were not
to be considered mutually exclusive, and most
examples were found to contain two or more. In
addition to completing a rubric for each paper,
raters were encouraged to mark the reading copies
to identify the examples. These marked-up texts
were retained along with the rubrics for
follow-up analysis.

• This study examines the connection between (1)
  transfer of learning and (2) ePortfolio practice
  in a first-year writing program utilizing the
  foundational work of Salomon and Perkins (1992),
  who establish five conditions that facilitate
  transfer of learning, including
• explicit abstraction
• active self-monitoring
• arousing mindfulness
• Because the composition of an ePortfolio may
  invoke these conditions, we asked the question,
  Does the use of the ePortfolio process in
  composition classrooms create a condition for the
  transfer of learning?

• Nine students who were identified as having rich
  responses in the rating sessions agreed to be
  interviewed. Three students were sophomores and
  juniors and six were second semester first-year
  students.
• Findings
• Sophomores and juniors were able to make deeper
  connections than first-year students between the
  skills they had acquired in their first-year
  writing classes and other writing situations. The
  first-year students provided responses that
  revealed their relative inexperience as college
  writers. Though these students made suggestions
  of larger applications, the suggestions were
  superficial. They didnt provide concrete
  examples that would suggest transfer.
• Sophomores and juniors discussed transfer of
  learning in relation to three CWR program
  outcomes and in relation to the ePortfolio
  emphasis on reflection.
• Outcomes Purposes and Audience, Conventions and
  Mechanics, and Writing Process Students
  discussed consideration of audiences and purposes
  in their first-year writing classes as distinctly
  different from their high school writing
  experiences and identified specific writing
  situations in their sophomore and junior years in
  which they considered the audience and purpose of
  the assignment and made rhetorical choices in
  response. One student spoke about how poor
  wording and mechanical errors damaged credibility
  and noted that her work with ethos in her
  first-year writing classes transferred into her
  composition of her Artist Statements. Students
  also discussed viewing the writing process as a
  skill they took with them to other writing
  situations. One student noted that his
  understanding of the recursive nature of the
  writing process transferred not just to other
  writing situations but also to his approach to
  each course during the semester.
• Reflection All three students discussed
  reflection within the ePortfolio as a skill that
  transferred into other aspects of their lives,
  academically and beyond. They described the
  process of examining their own learning as
  valuable.

RELEVANT SCHOLARSHIP
RATING SESSION RESULTS

• Observations by composition scholars Anne
  Beaufort and Jeff Sommers were of particular
  interest to our study. Beaufort (2007) grounds
  her discussion of transfer of learning in
  composition classes and makes three
  recommendations for facilitating transfer  
• Teach learners to frame specific problems and
  learning into more abstract principles that can
  be applied to new situations
• Give students numerous opportunities to apply
  abstract concepts in different social contexts
  and
• Teach the practice of mindfulness, or
  meta-cognition, to facilitate positive transfer
  of learning.
•  
• Through the insights of Beaufort we began to
  conceptualize ePortfolios as spaces where
  teachers could use these practices in their work
  with students and establish conditions supporting
  the transfer of learning.
• But as we sought to envision our ePortfolio
  practice--with its emphasis on reflection,--as a
  space supportive of transfer of learning, we also
  understood that working with these broad concepts
  in the composition classroom has been questioned
  by some scholars. Critics have argued teaching
  practices based on reflection specifically
  those that encourage and reward through academic
  credit learners identification and
  self-expression of transfer of learning could
  result in students merely approximating what they
  believe teachers want to hear.
• In response to these types of criticisms, Jeff
  Sommers (2011) argues
• it does not matter that they might be telling
  me what they think I want to hear because if
  they are smart enough to explain the transfer
  of learning in concrete, specific terms, then
  whether they have actually done as they say is
  not really of paramount importance.  What
  matters, I would argue, is that they have
  learned what might transfer and how and when -
  and that explanation itself is, I believe, a
  meaningful transfer of learning expressed in a
  reflection-on-action (117).

In almost 55 of the 146 papers (147 minus one
incomplete record), we found at least one example
suggesting transfer We found
the majority of transfer examples described
learning that originated from within the CWR
curriculum
    Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid 0 66 44.9 45.2 45.2
Valid 1 63 42.9 43.2 88.4
Valid 2 13 8.8 8.9 97.3
Valid 3 3 2.0 2.1 99.3
Valid 4 1 .7 .7 100.0
Valid Total 146 99.3 100.0  
Missing System 1 .7    
Total Total 147 100.0    
    Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid a CWR course 88 88.0 88.0 88.0
Valid high school 3 3.0 3.0 91.0
Valid non-CWR UM course 2 2.0 2.0 93.0
Valid Other 7 7.0 7.0 100.0
Valid Total 100 100.0 100.0  
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
We believe a longitudinal study will yield
results that might be valuable for other
institutions interested in using ePortfolios. We
plan to follow the students whom we have
interviewed with the long-term goal of publishing
findings that situate ePortfolios among the
pedagogical approaches to promoting the transfer
of learning. We are also interested in
conducting a comparison study with undergraduate
students who use ePortfolios in the UM School of
Pharmacy. We are particularly interested in
learning if those students ePortfolios reveal
evidence that the collect, select, reflect
process invokes the conditions identified by
Salomon and Perkins.