Variations in portfolio assessment in higher education: Discussion of quality issues based on a Norwegian survey across institutions and disciplines

In this article, we present findings from a survey study of portfolio assessment practices in four Norwegian higher education institutions after a major educational reform had introduced more varied assessment forms, more compulsory writing and closer follow-up of students. The purpose behind the study was to map these newly emerging writing and assessment practices in order to find out how teachers conceptualized portfolio assessment in different types of institutions and disciplines, and what this meant for how portfolios were used and assessed. Our findings show that the portfolios were all text based, but with great variations in genres and overall structure as well as in formative and summative assessment practices. The general tendency was that ‘soft’ disciplines had more reflection based and varied portfolio models than the ‘hard’ disciplines (maths, sciences and engineering). This same tendency goes for peer response, which was less used in hard than in soft disciplines. The focus of the article is to discuss the implications of some of the major findings for the quality of assessment, particularly the disciplinary diversity issue, feedback practices and explicit criteria.