A Survey of the Use of Portfolios in Selected Public Elementary Schools

A study was conducted to determine the prevalence of the use of portfolios in selected public elementary schools. Participants were asked for demographic information and information about the amount of training they had in portfolio use and the perceived strengths and benefits, weaknesses and barriers they find in portfolio use. A questionnaire developed for the study was completed by 162 elementary school teachers from 12 elementary schools in a large public school system in southwest Alabama. Three schools were in the inner city, three were rural, three were magnet schools, and three were suburban. Most of the respondents reported using whole language teaching strategies (86%) and portfolios (88%) in their classrooms. Almost half had received one training session in the use of portfolios. Language arts and reading were identified as the areas that worked best with portfolios. Teachers indicated that portfolios did have an impact on their teaching strategies. The majority thought that portfolios would not replace report cards, and they felt that parents did not understand portfolios. However, half of the teachers thought that portfolios were effective for communication between teacher and student and teacher and teacher, but not between principal and school board. Many teachers (46%) thought that a weakness of portfolio use was that they are too time consuming. Being able to document students' progress fully was listed as a major benefit of portfolio use. Results show that teachers in these schools are familiar with portfolios and are using them as authentic assessment. An appendix contains the survey instrument. (Contains four tables and four references.) (SLD)