DIFFERENT USE OF E-PORTFOLIO: EVALUATION & INTERPRETATION

2.4. Challenges

The participants were asked about the individual challenges they faced when working with ePortfolios. This results in the following codes:

Application-related (in relation to the use in the respective teaching/learning scenario)

• Subject-related
• Control, feedback
• Learning type
• Extra work
• Motivation, emotions
• Technology, tool-related
• Clarity

Students:

All students see the fact that working with ePortfolios involves a comparatively high amount of extra work as a challenge. The "cost-benefit ratio" (S1) would be imbalanced if it had to be managed throughout the degree programme, but the familiarisation with the tools and the development of digital skills relevant to ePortfolio management would also be relatively high, as the tools are complex and have their own technical peculiarities and problems (S2). This means that some of the tools are not accessible enough from the student teachers' perspective, even if they were to use them for their own lessons. Furthermore, some subjects are rather unsuitable for ePortfolio management (S1).

Teachers:

L3 and L4 agree with the students that the tools are more difficult to access and that technical problems can occur. L2 mentions the extra work involved, while L1 emphasises that not all subjects are suitable for use.

L4, who has the most experience with ePortfolios, sees the greatest challenges and mentions the most points in her survey. She emphasises the balance between coaching and pupil observation as crucial and criticises educational policy problems and the discrepancy between traditional forms of assessment and ePortfolios. She also mentions colleagues who are sceptical about the concept and thus find it rather difficult to implement it uniformly at a school, as well as the adaptation of learners to new requirements as challenges.

Pupils:

The pupils see similar challenges in dealing with ePortfolios. Everyone finds Mahara cumbersome to use, especially when creating texts, and criticises the old-fashioned design and problems with the display on different devices. In addition to the high expenditure of time, SuS1 and SuS2 sometimes find the use of ePortfolios unnecessary and fear a loss of overview with too many ePortfolios. They feel that their work is not adequately recognised by teachers. SuS3 also criticises the difficulty of getting started and the lack of support from the teachers. SuS4 feel controlled by the teachers. Some pupils prefer analogue writing and doubt the usefulness of ePortfolios for their learning process. In general, all groups express feelings of frustration, monotony, excessive demands and effort in relation to working with ePortfolios, especially during the assessment process.