The use of portfolio learning in medical education

Portfolio learning is a method of encouraging adult and reflective learning for professionals. Derived from the graphic arts it is based on developing a collection of evidence that learning has taken place. Portfolios are being used more in nursing and medical education. They are excellent tools for assisting formative assessment and professional development. They are also being developed for formal assessment processes, being seen as one form of authentic assessment particularly suited to evaluating the application of theory in practice. There are, however, difficulties associated with the lack of standardization of the content of portfolios in terms of developing assessment instruments. As long as formal assessment is based on the philosophy of measurement, portfolios will be difficult to assess and will require the development of non-comparative methods of assessment. This article describes some of the history of portfolios, how to develop a portfolio to assist learning or for professional development purposes and discusses some of the current thinking about the use of portfolios for formal assessment.