The Role of ePortfolios in Formative Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

In educational settings, formative assessment is used to determine the status of students and foster their development. Task, process, and feedback serve as the basis of formative assessments. Typically, tasks are introduced to lessons to facilitate student feedback. Due to their technological potential, eportfolios are often used to help with assigning tasks, managing processes, and getting feedback. It is necessary to incorporate the findings from environments where eportfolios are used for formative assessment into the existing literature. A systematic literature review was employed for this purpose. Three researchers reviewed 33 studies utilizing content analysis. The Fleiss kappa was used to determine inter-rater reliability. Quantitative analysis was performed on the articles' dependent or related variables, environments, research method, implementation period, evaluators, eportfolio type, activity format, evaluation instruments, education level, and course categories. Among the qualitative findings of the studies were the prominent concepts of the use of eportfolios, as well as the themes and codes of advantages and challenges. The findings indicate that the integration of eportfolios in the formative assessment process, despite its challenges, provides significant advantages. It is expected that the study's findings will be useful for researchers as well as practitioners who intend to use eportfolios for formative assessment processes.