The Advantages of Portfolio Assessment Because of the limitation of traditional assessment tests, many educators have been experimenting with alternative forms of assessment, and many have described the advantages of portfolio assessments. Portfolios can be used to evaluate both products and process, and they allow the integration of learning and assessment. Learning based on portfolio assessment can be more student-directed, and since evaluation is not based on single scores, instruction based on learning styles is more easily evaluated. Portfolios provide more information about student progress and encourage students to take charge of their own learning. Students feel that they are part of the assessment process.
Portfolios help students develop kills necessary for life-long learning.
Finally, portfolios assess global understanding and thinking skills. In short, portfolios enable a multidimensional form of evaluation that is bound to have parent approval. Teachers indicate that the use of portfolios impose substantial burdens on them and that variations in using portfolios are sufficient to jeopardize comparative interpretations of test results. Also, maintaining portfolios can be time-consuming, handling and storage can be problems, and deciding the content of portfolios can be harder than other evaluation methods. Students in this study were able to reflect on and formulate statements about their personal beliefs and values, their understandings of themselves as learners and writers, their abilities and skills as writers, and their goals and aspirations.