Being a student in the social media era: exploring educational affordances of an ePortfolio for managing academic performance

Abstract

PurposeUndergraduate students often find it difficult to organize their learning activities and manage their learning. Also, teachers need dynamic pedagogical frameworks and learning technologies for supporting learners to advance their academic performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of an ePortfolio intervention on self-regulated learning (SRL cognitive, affective, behavioral and contextual processes) and academic achievement.Design/methodology/approachFor the purposes of this study, an ePortfolio was designed and implemented based on SRL. The ePortfolio-based self-regulated learning approach (ePSRL) system encompasses the merits of a social networking platform and the functionalities of a learning management system. The participants were 123 university students (38 females and 85 males) at a computer science department. Students were randomly divided into two groups, the experimental and the control group.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that there is a significant increase of the means across SRL processes between the perceptions in the experimental and the control group. The implementation of the ePSRL approach as a learning module for undergraduate students could enable learners to manage their learning processes, transform their behavior into measurable learning outcomes and foster their academic performance.Originality/valueThis paper considers the importance of SRL and ePortfolios. Also, highlights the need of providing technology enhanced training courses and interventions to undergraduate students for supporting them to thrive during their academic studies. Thus, it proposes a set of educational affordances and practical guidelines that can be used by practitioners, instructional designers and educators in higher education as well as in vocational education and training institutions.