‘you just knew what you had to write’- reflective learning and e-portfolio in the social...

ELiSS, Vol 3 Issue 1 – July 2010 ISSN: 1756-848X

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‘You just knew what you had to write’: reflective

learning and e-portfolio in the social sciences

Serena Bufton

Faculty of Development and Society

Collegiate Crescent Campus (Southbourne)

Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield S1 1WB

UK

Tel 0114 225 2417

Email [email protected]

Ian Woolsey

Faculty of Development and Society

Collegiate Crescent Campus (Southbourne)

Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield S1 1WB

UK

Tel 0114 225 6070

Email [email protected]

Biographies

Dr Serena Bufton is a principal lecturer in sociology and a faculty teaching

fellow at Sheffield Hallam University. She is a member of Cohort III of the

Inter/National Coalition of E-Portfolio Research (INCEPR) and, as part of this

coalition, has conducted research into the use of e-portfolios for reflective

learning. Serena has also published work in the areas of personal

development planning and working-class, mature students’ experiences of

higher education.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


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Ian Woolsey is a lecturer in sociology and a faculty research fellow at

Sheffield Hallam University. He has published work in the areas of autism and

pedagogy, and has a forthcoming publication which discusses football

supporter identities.


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Abstract

This paper presents the findings of research into student views and uses of an

electronic portfolio, which was introduced on a large undergraduate social

science degree programme to promote reflective learning and personal

development planning. The findings indicate that, while a majority of students

evaluated the e-portfolio positively, they were more equivocal about the

benefits of externally imposed reflective learning activities. The authors

conclude by problematising the concept of reflective learning and the use of

electronic tools as substitutes for face-to-face dialogue and personal

relationships with tutors.

Key words: electronic portfolios, reflective learning, personal development

planning, social science


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Introduction: the reflective learner

The Dearing Report (1997) advised universities to give all students the

opportunity to engage in personal development planning (PDP), defined as ‘a

structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon

their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their

personal, educational and career development’ (Quality Assurance Agency

(QAA), 2009: 2). This definition foregrounds reflection as the foundation upon

which learning – personal, academic and professional – can inform ‘lifelong

and life-wide activity’ (ibid: 4). Race (2006) defines reflective learning in the

following way:

The act of reflecting is one which causes us to make sense of what

we've learned, why we learned it, and how that particular increment of

learning took place. Moreover reflection is about linking one increment

of learning to the wider perspectives of learning – heading towards the

seeing of the bigger picture.

The concept of ‘integrative learning’ (Huber and Hutchings, 2005) captures

this sense of ‘seeing the bigger picture’ through reflection, which lies at the

heart of PDP and implies a more intentional approach by the learner (ibid),

who develops a greater sense of direction and purpose in their learning.

Yancey (1998: 6) describes this kind of intentional learning when she defines

reflection as:

the dialectical process by which we learn to develop and achieve, first,

specific goals for learning; second, strategies for reaching those goals;

and third, means of determining whether or not we have met those

goals or other goals.


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It is argued that the process of reflecting, of making sense and creating links,

not only improves the quantitative aspects of learning but also changes the

nature of the learning by promoting ‘deep’ and ‘transformative’ learning

through the encouragement of ‘metacognition’: ‘the awareness of one’s own

cognitive functioning’ (Moon, 2001: 6, 7), which ‘entails knowing what one

knows and does not know, predicting outcomes, planning ahead, efficiently

apportioning time and cognitive resources, and monitoring one’s efforts to

solve a problem or learn’ (Huber and Hutchings, 2005: 9).

Reflection can be seen as an inherently social process, as Yancey indicates

when she writes: ‘we learn to understand ourselves through explaining

ourselves to others’ (Yancey, 1998: 11). Clegg, Hudson and Mitchell (2005: 5)

also note ‘the essentially dialogic nature of reflection’, emphasising that the

greater individualisation which characterises our society today actually

increases the need for interdependence because dialogue with others may

result in a reframing or revaluation of experience and may impact on the

sense of self and development: ‘in conditions where personal reflection is

paramount, dialogue becomes even more, not less, important’ (ibid: 6).

Attempts have been made to locate the learner on a continuum of reflective

development. Hatton and Smith (1995: 40), for example, distinguish between

‘descriptive writing, descriptive reflection, dialogic reflection and critical

reflection’. Similarly, Davis (2006: 282) distinguishes between: ‘unproductive

reflection’, which is descriptive rather than analytical, with poor connectivity of

ideas and use of evidence and a judgmental rather than evaluative approach,

and ‘productive reflection’, which is characterised by analysis and a

connectivity of ideas which result in ‘integrated knowledge’ (ibid: 207). A

useful typology of reflective learning has been developed by the Alverno

College Faculty (2000) and elaborated by Rickards, Diez et al (2006). This

typology distinguishes between three levels of reflection and learning:

‘beginning’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘advanced’ (Rickards, Diez et al, 2006: 15). At

a beginning level, students exhibit the ‘unproductive’ reflection identified by

Davis, with descriptive, uncritical reporting of feedback on performance and

little perception of connectivity in learning. At the intermediate level, there is a


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growing sophistication in the use of evidence to make judgments on learning,

more connectivity in learning and a developing sense of self as learner.

Students at the advanced level demonstrate these abilities to the full,

emerging as accomplished, flexible learners in different contexts, able to draw

upon multiple frameworks and to situate their learning within a wider narrative

of personal development (Rickards, Diez et al, 2006: 15).

The problem with reflective learning

The concept of reflective learning is not unproblematic, however. For

example, the relationship between ‘reflection’ and ‘learning’ cannot be

assumed: these are distinct, if related, activities. Reflection may be superficial

and have no conscious purpose (Moon, 2001: 1); conversely, and more

contentiously, learning may occur without systematic reflection. Drawing on

the literature in this area, Clegg and Bradley (2006: 470–471) argue:

‘Learning is not accomplished entirely at the level of the cognitively accessible

… ‘knowing how’ may be entirely tacit and … people may not be able to

describe what they are doing’. Being able to consciously think about and

articulate learning may only be possible after repeated practice has itself

produced an improvement in performance (ibid: 471).

Further difficulties emerge when we attempt to promote reflective learning in

our students. How can it be incorporated within the curriculum? Should it be

addressed explicitly or implicitly? What kind of pedagogy is implied? What, if

any, tools can be used to support it? Should we assess it, and, if so, how?

And, crucially, how do we know that our interventions have helped to create

the ‘deep’ and ‘transformative’ learning that we are told is associated with it?

Evidence of the effectiveness of reflection on student learning was sought in a

systematic review by the Evidence for Policy and Practice (EPPI) Centre

(Gough et al, 2003). Drawing on all empirical evidence available at the time,

the authors ‘confirm the central policy claim that PDP supports the

improvement of students’ academic learning and achievement’ (ibid: 6),

adding, however, a caveat that the diversity of policy and practice being


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researched in the studies they reviewed ‘limit[s] the extent that clear

conclusions can be drawn about the usefulness of PDP in enabling learning’

(ibid: 5). In addition, the authors note that there was insufficient evidence to

make a judgment about the impact of PDP on personal factors such as

identity or about the type of approach to PDP that is most effective in

promoting student learning.

Supporting students to become reflective learners

Universities have responded to the task of supporting the development of

students as reflective learners in a variety of ways, including the development

and use of e-portfolios ‘to structure and support learning’ (QAA, 2009: 4). A

recent survey of practice in the UK indicates that higher education institutions

are increasingly using an e-portfolio tool to support PDP (Strivens, 2007).

Although e-portfolio is not an unproblematic concept (Becta, 2007), given its

many potential uses, in the present context it can be seen as a web-based

electronic tool which enables students to build a digital repository of learning

artefacts, both formal and informal, for multiple purposes – for example, to

record and reflect upon progress and plan future learning and career

development. It has been argued that e-portfolio encourages a pedagogy

which ‘shifts from a course-driven focus to a student-centred approach,

placing emphasis for learning firmly on the student’ (Tosh and Werdmuller,

2004: 3). In addition, a good e-portfolio can provide a tool for ‘linking together

people, ideas and resources’ (Tosh, Werdmuller et al 2004: 6), providing a

vehicle for bringing together learning from across modules and levels of study

and also for linking curricular and extra-curricular learning experiences. As

such, e-portfolio can be seen as potentially useful for supporting personal,

academic and professional development (see, for example, JISC, 2006).

The research project

This paper has emerged from a longitudinal research project (2006–2009) into

the use of reflective e-portfolio tools by undergraduate students on a large,


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social science degree programme. The project was undertaken as part of our

membership of Cohort III of the Inter/National Coalition of Electronic Portfolio

Research (http://ncepr.org/cohort3.html), a research group based in the USA,

and involved the introduction of a web 2.0 e-portfolio tool (PebblePad). The

introduction of this tool was a response to an earlier project which had

uncovered serious problems in the way in which first-year students had

responded to the introduction of a paper-based PDP activity and to their

sense of dislocation from, and disenchantment with, the learning process over

the course as a whole (Pates and Bradley, 2004; Clegg and Bufton, 2008).

Our findings at the time echoed Moir’s observation that students may see

PDP in an instrumental way, a ‘process of managing information’ rather than

one of ‘discovery, insight and growth’ (Moir, 2009: 7). It was hoped that the e-

portfolio tool would support the PDP process, improve the reflective learning

that students engaged in throughout their course and provide a tool through

which their learning could be both captured and integrated. It was also hoped

that the tool would promote increased dialogue – tutor–student and student–

student – which would further support the learning process (Bufton and

Diamond, 2007).

PebblePad was embedded initially during 2006–2007 within a core, first-year

social science skills and support module with an emphasis on the

development of undergraduate academic skills, and was used by students to

reflect upon and improve their learning throughout the year. This reflective e-

portfolio work was assessed at the end of the year. In 2007–2008, PebblePad

was embedded in a core, second-year, work-related learning module in which

students were required to make connections between their academic skills

and knowledge and the world of work. Again, their reflective accounts were

assessed at the end of the year. Finally, in 2008–2009, PebblePad was

integrated within an optional module where it was used to assess coursework

which had a reflective component.

An analysis of the students’ reflective e-portfolio work at the end of their first

year indicated that reflections were largely at the ‘beginning’ level, as outlined

by Rickards, Diez et al (2006), that students often accepted tutor feedback on

http://ncepr.org/cohort3.html


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their work uncritically and that many had difficulty in understanding,

integrating and acting on this feedback to progress (Bufton and Ehiyazaryan,

2008). Bernstein (2000: 162–163) argues that students new to sociology may

have difficulties understanding the nature of its language, its conventions and

rules of argument. This, he claims, is because sociology has a ‘horizontal

knowledge structure’ with a ‘weak grammar’ and employs competing

conceptual frameworks (with associated assumptions and languages) that

have only loose relationships with their empirical bases. Bernstein argues that

students need to be acculturated to the conventions and languages of the

discipline – to the sociological ‘gaze’ (ibid: 164) – through social interaction

with their tutors.

As the students shared their work and feedback with us through their e-

portfolios, tutors gained greater insight into the challenges they faced in the

transition to higher education and felt more able to support them to meet

these challenges. When the students moved on to their second and third

years, tutors were cautiously optimistic about the continued value of the e-

portfolio tool to: provide an electronic repository, drawing together completed

work and feedback to support dialogue and reflective learning; to create an

additional channel for tutor–student communication and formative feedback;

and to provide an additional electronic space for collaborative working

between students. This paper reports some of the findings of research into

student views of the benefits of the e-portfolio tool for their learning as they

reached the end of their final year of study.

Method

In March 2009 an online census was distributed to the 86 final-year social

science students whose courses had required them to use PebblePad for at

least two years. Students were asked about their use of PebblePad and their

attitudes towards the tool. As an incentive, all participants completing the

questionnaire were automatically entered into a prize draw to win an Apple

IPod touch phone. Of the 86 students who were eligible to complete the


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questionnaire, 54 replied. This gave a response rate of 63 per cent. The vast

majority of the respondents were female (87%, n=47). The questionnaire

consisted of closed and open-ended questions. Open-ended data were

analysed thematically. SPSS 16.0 was used during the analysis. All

percentages reported have been rounded up to whole numbers.

Following this, a purposive sample was drawn up of ten students who had

indicated on the questionnaire that they would be willing to participate in a

semi-structured interview. Participants were selected for interview on the

basis of their questionnaire responses about the PebblePad tool. The authors

sought to ensure that students who expressed a range of views were included

in the final sample. Interviews explored students' attitudes towards this e-

learning tool, and their engagement in reflective practice, in greater depth.

The interviews lasted between 31 and 49 minutes. All interviews were

recorded digitally and transcribed fully by an external professional. Transcripts

were analysed and coded thematically. Nvivo 8 software was used during the

analysis.

Findings

We wanted to find out how useful our students had found the e-portfolio tool

for supporting what we regard as the constituent elements of reflective

learning: the gathering together of work and feedback to allow review across

modules and years; the recording of skills and achievements; collaborative

learning and dialogue; forward planning. We specifically asked students if

they had found the tool useful for reflecting upon and analysing their progress

in a cumulative way.

e-Portfolio as a support for learning

Students were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert scale how helpful they found

PebblePad for performing specific tasks (see table 1). In order to gain a more

general understanding of students' attitudes towards the tool, responses in the


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‘very helpful’ and ‘helpful’ categories were merged into one category, as were

responses in the ‘very unhelpful’ or ‘unhelpful’ categories. Significantly, four of

the six tasks which ranked most highly were associated with the ‘repository’

function of PebblePad as a site for storing completed assignments, feedback

and evidence of skills, including those skills necessary for future study or

employment. However, students also indicated that they had found the tool

useful for a variety of reflective tasks.

Table 1 below summarises some of the data from the survey and gives an

indication of student views of the helpfulness of the e-portfolio tool for specific

activities. The table indicates that approximately half of the respondents

assessed PebblePad as helpful or very helpful for reflective learning:

reflecting upon and analysing progress in specific modules (50%, n=27) and

across the course (50%, n=27); identifying general aspects of academic

learning that need to be improved (48%, n=26). Approaching a third were

neutral on these issues, and sizeable minorities – around a fifth of

respondents – felt that PebblePad was unhelpful or very unhelpful for these

reflective activities. In terms of planning strategies for further academic

learning, PebblePad was seen as less helpful, with 41 per cent (n=22) of

respondents saying it was either helpful or very helpful.

PLEASE INSERT TABLE 1 HERE

These survey findings were interesting but did not really uncover the

complexities of student views about reflective learning, which are shaped as

much by their learning techniques and the pedagogic approaches of their

tutors as they are by the presence of an e-portfolio tool to support this

learning. These issues were discussed more fully during semi-structured

interviews.

In order to explore the success of integrating the PebblePad tool into course

modules, interviewees were asked whether they had: reflected on their

learning as they progressed throughout their courses; analysed their

performance across modules and years; thought about their skills; and made


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changes to become better learners. Six of the ten students responded that

they had. Of these, five indicated that PebblePad had supported their

reflective practice, two suggesting that the tool had done so, at least in part,

by allowing them to gather together work, feedback and reflections in the

same place:

Certainly when you got to the end of the second year and you had to

reflect on what you’d done the year before and the year you were in

you could see the sort of similarities – the same things that you were

still trying to overcome or some of the things that you had overcome.

So I think in that sense it did help because you could see it all in one

place.

(Participant 3)

However, for one of the students who had engaged in the specified activities,

PebblePad was simply seen as the tool that they had been required to use to

document their reflections:

I wouldn’t say Pebble Pad itself helped me. It’s more that I had to use

PebblePad to do that reflection exercise on.

(Participant 9)

There is an indication in one interview that PebblePad might be useful as a

means of scaffolding reflective practice in the transition to higher education by

providing a structured environment to support the development of higher-level

cognitive skills. However, this interviewee felt that it had a limited use later on

when more sophisticated cognitive skills had been developed and there was

less need to write reflections down:

I just sort of looked at it and used my own judgment and didn’t feel the

need to write things down – like to put it in written words, to be able to

think where I needed to do more work – whereas in the first year I think

you’re quite unsure about the learning process of university ... and it’s a


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bit more helpful because it gives you some sort of direction.

(Participant 7)

Insightful comments were also made by the four students who stated that they

hadn’t engaged in the specified reflective activities. One of these, conflating

the tool (e-portfolio) with the practice (reflection), said that they had not

reflected on their learning because they had not ‘used PebblePad to the full

advantage’, adding that, with increased integration into their course, the tool

could be ‘really useful’. This comment is supported by the survey data, which

showed that students who had been required to use PebblePad in their third

year of study had more positive attitudes towards it overall than those for

whom its use had been confined to the first two years of study.

These findings suggest a complex relationship between reflection, use of an

e-portfolio and student learning. While some students clearly benefit when

reflection is scaffolded through the use of an e-portfolio, others may see such

scaffolding as helpful only in the early stages of learning at university, as just

one of a number of supports for learning, or even as an irrelevance.

More broadly, the data indicated that reflective practice constitutes only one of

the ways in which students feel that they learn. A lack of engagement in

reflective exercises and alternative ways of learning reported by some of the

students suggest scepticism about the value of ‘reflection’ for their learning,

which is discussed in the following sections.

The value of reflection

Findings from this study indicate mixed levels of engagement among students

with reflective learning activities, even though these were embedded in at

least one module at each level of study and assessed. To a variable extent,

students had been able to: identify weaknesses and reoccurring trends;

evaluate previous reflective work; monitor progress; and develop strategies

for improvement:


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I do remember … going through the marks I got for my modules and

targeting the one that I was weakest at in, thinking, ‘Right, well I need

to work on this’, and then in semester two I did considerably better.

(Participant 7)

However, as noted earlier, not all students had engaged in reflective

exercises with the same degree of conviction. Describing the mandatory

reflective exercises that they had been asked to complete in their first and

second years, one student, who indicated that they had engaged with the

reflective activities specified in the previous subsection, commented: ‘Most

people who I've known off my course, the reflection exercise is done an hour

before it’s due to be handed in’ (Participant 9). Another was equally forthright:

Everyone hates them. Everyone thinks they’re pointless. You do them

in the last day in an hour and you usually get a first for it. The only

good thing is you usually got a first for it because it was you just sat

and wrote bullshit really. Most of it was like ‘I think I’ve improved

because of this’, and it wouldn’t actually be true. You just knew what

you had to write.

(Participant 8)

There was a feeling that reflective work is not real academic work and that it

takes up valuable time that should be spent on ‘actual studies’. This use of

the term ‘actual studies’ by one interviewee is indicative of a hierarchical

positioning and de-prioritising of specific learning activities, ‘actual’ studies

being conceptualised as the legitimate outward focus on academic knowledge

as distinct from the inner focus on personal development. One student, for

example, argued that reflective work should not be assessed because ‘your

reflection is your own reflection’ (Participant 9) – it is a personal and

introspective process which does not sit easily with the impartial academic

stance that, as social scientists, students are urged to adopt.

The data also raise some interesting questions about the role of structured,

externally imposed reflective learning. Might it be that knowledge acquisition


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owes more to tacit practice than to scaffolded reflective tasks and skills

targeting? Two students provided useful insights into this. The first suggested

that, throughout the degree, they had just ‘learned by practice really’, although

they did concede that they had been able to identify errors in their academic

performance from some of the feedback they had received. However, when

asked whether the 'practice' which informed their learning was consciously

recognised, the student answered:

You’re not really aware of the fact that you are improving. It’s just a

natural process as you learn more about uni. You’re not really aware

physically of what you’ve done wrong in an essay, if you know what I

mean – like exactly like structural-wise. You just kind of get a general

feel about it when you get feedback, so the next time you do an essay

you’re sort of sub-consciously aware of it in your mind and I think it just

comes through.

(Participant 7)

The interplay of tacit and conscious learning was acknowledged by another

student who, when asked about the point at which tacit learning becomes

consciously recognised, replied:

Let’s say for example throughout uni each year we’ve had to do this

reflection exercise. Now I’ve never gone … say in the first year I did my

reflection exercise; in the second year I never looked back and read

over that reflection exercise to help me, but I’ve remembered a lot of

what I did that maybe I needed to improve on, do you know? So I kind

of used more … I kind of … Oh, it’s hard!

(Participant 9)

The data suggest, therefore, that while some students may feel they gain very

little from reflective exercises, this does not mean that they do not think about,

and work to develop, their learning – they clearly do, but not necessarily

during externally imposed timescales and tasks.


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Dialogue and tutor support

Following our assumption that dialogue is an important part of reflective

learning, we asked students about their collaborative working practices. A

minority of students had used the e-portfolio for collaborative learning. For

example, 33 per cent (n=18) had used it for giving feedback to other students.

However, many more of them had used other electronic tools for working

together, 71 per cent (n=38) saying that they had used Facebook. This finding

supports the claim made by Tosh, Werdmuller et al (2004) that what is

needed to support learning is not an e-portfolio but an integrated electronic

‘learning landscape’ comprising a range of tools. However, in the current dash

to find electronic ‘fixes’ for a decreasing teaching resource in higher

education, the centrality of face-to-face dialogue must not be overlooked, and

the students in our research underlined the importance of this kind of dialogue

– both with each other and with tutors – in their learning process. One, for

example, commented:

PebblePad’s helped me with my reflection and with me sharing stuff

with other students but mainly me and my friends just sit and chat. Like

we’ll just say, ‘Well, I’ve done this and I’ve done this’ because it’s a lot

easier rather than, say, emailing stuff to each other all the time ... So

normally, just like in between lectures, we’d just meet up in a cafe and

just talk it out that way.

(Participant 2)

Dialogue with tutors was also seen as an important support for learning and

some students argued that written feedback from tutors was only the first step

in helping them to gain a greater understanding of how they might improve as

learners. Six students recounted how they had held discussions with their

tutors as a means of clarifying their feedback:

Sometimes the feedback forms … you sort of look at them and think,

‘Well no, I did that. I did that. I did that’, but when you go and talk to

someone about it, it’s like, ‘Oh, I actually didn’t do that, and I didn’t do


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that and I didn’t do that.’ So I don’t think feedback forms sometimes are

enough’.

(Participant 6)

The student added that it was not always possible to see a tutor's point of

view until they had received an opportunity to discuss this with them. In a

similar vein, another student underlined the importance of dialogue in

supporting reflective learning:

I think, you know, maybe reflection would be better to do speaking with

someone like your tutor because then you can talk it through and hear

someone else’s opinion on how you’ve done as well.

(Participant 9)

The value of face-to-face dialogue with tutors was made explicit by all of the

students interviewed during this study. Interaction had helped some of these

students to improve their work and others to increase their confidence as they

worked towards the assessment. Interaction with tutors was also seen as

important for developing personal relationships, which were thought to be

important in the learning process:

You know, that’s where a lot of my learning’s done or at least they’re a

stepping stone towards the learning experience through face-to-face

interaction with your tutors because, for one, you’re seen as you, as

people, and you’re not sitting at a distance. Lecturers that you see

once a week, you know, you can actually develop a relationship, a

student–lecturer relationship and, you know, that for me is crucial and

very important.

(Participant 5)

Emerging from the data therefore is a strong sense that students want tutors

to know them and their work and that these personal relationships are

important, not only for their learning, but also for their general experience of


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higher education. It may well be that the perceived absence of these personal

relationships underlies much student dissatisfaction with their courses. There

is no evidence from our data that the increasing use of electronic supports for

learning is in any way a substitute for the personalised, face-to-face learning

contexts that are now becoming very difficult to provide in higher education.

Discussion

Our data suggest that e-portfolios can be used effectively to support certain

components of reflective learning: the gathering together of work and

feedback on which to reflect; the scaffolding of reflective processes (at least in

the early stages of study at university); and the cumulative collection of

materials and reflections which allows progress to be assessed over time and

further learning planned. However, our data have problematised the practice

of making ‘reflection’ an explicit part of the curriculum and, more generally,

have led us to think more about how our social science students learn and

the role of personal, face-to-face relationships with tutors in this process.

From the interviews with students, it is clear that reflection on learning does

take place, but it may do so informally rather than formally, may be driven by

a self-recognised need rather than an externally imposed timescale, and may

occur in conversations with others rather than as a solitary activity. There is a

real sense in which the activities devised by tutors to support learning through

reflection are perceived, by some students at least, as artificial, a distraction

from their ‘actual studies’ and as things to be done mechanically, at the last

minute, and for no real purpose. This is not to claim that students do not

reflect on their learning – clearly, they do – but that the teaching interventions

we put in place to support this kind of learning are not necessarily bringing the

benefits we hoped for.

Students may perceive a disjunction between the approaches they are

expected to demonstrate in their ‘actual’ studies and those they have to adopt

in their reflective writing. For example, some students expressed the view that


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reflection is a personal process and should not be assessed (although they

conceded that, without assessment, many students would not engage with it).

Perhaps we are giving students a mixed message when we require them to

write their personal reflections while at the same time stressing the

impersonal and impartial nature of the social science perspective (which

students – and some of their tutors – routinely interpret as an injunction on

using the personal pronoun ‘I’ in their writing).

At a deeper level, the role of tacit learning is raised in our data and the

complex ways in which this articulates with more explicit learning. In all

academic disciplines, at least some of what is learned is tacit knowledge

about the conventions of that discipline, what counts as knowledge and how

this knowledge is acquired (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Very often, such

knowledge is tacitly rather than explicitly communicated. As argued earlier,

this may be particularly problematic for students in social science subjects

such as sociology, where there are competing knowledges, disourses and

claims to truth (Bernstein 2000: 162–163). In this situation, students new to

sociology may experience great difficulty in working out the ‘ground rules’ of

the discipline. Following Bernstein, we contend that these ground rules are

learned through interaction with those familiar with them.

As the move to a mass higher education system has reduced tutor–student

contact time, the opportunities for face-to-face interaction between tutors and

students have diminished and it is unsurprising that attention has turned to

electronic tools to support the learning process. Such tools are clearly of huge

benefit to students in many ways but, we would argue, cannot replace the

learning that takes place through face-to-face dialogue. This is particularly the

case when the learning involves a transmission of tacit knowledge, as

Falconer suggests when she writes, ‘tacitness is hard to diffuse

technologically as it requires face-to-face interaction and exchange of

experiences’ (Falconer, 2006: 145). It is through this ‘exchange of

experiences’ – between tutors and their students and between students and

their peers – that the tacit messages encoded in tutor feedback can be made

clear and the tacit learning that students have demonstrated (or not


20

demonstrated) can be made explicit and discussed.

Although the students in our study found it difficult to express their ideas

about tacit learning, what they said indicates the importance for them of

learning ‘by practice’, of ‘getting a general feel’ about what they have done

well and not so well, of learning as a ‘natural process’. While we are

constructing pedagogical approaches and curricula that explicitly incorporate

reflective activities and modules, and introducing ever more elaborate

electronic tools to support these, students may be gaining more insight into

their learning, and making more progress, as a result of the tacit learning that

takes place through casual chats with their peers over coffee or individual

discussions with their tutors. So while e-portfolio may provide a useful tool to

support reflective thinking, it is just that – a tool. What is important is not the

tool but how it is used – the pedagogical approach, the learning activities and,

most important, the relationships and dialogue that support the learning

process.


21

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State University Press.

PLEASE INSERT THE FOLLOWING TABLE ON PAGE 10 WHERE

INDICATED

Table 1: Students' perceptions of PebblePad’s helpfulness for specified

tasks

Helpful or very

helpful

Neither helpful

nor unhelpful

Unhelpful or

very unhelpful

Gathering and storing completed

assignments

78% (42) 11% (6) 11% (6)

Getting feedback on your work

from tutors

76% (41) 17% (9) 7% (4)

Gathering and storing feedback

on assignments

70% (38) 19% (10) 11% (6)

Gathering evidence of future skills

for future study or employment

56% (30) 26% (14) 19% (10)

Keeping a diary or a blog for

ongoing academic work

54% (29) 26% (14) 20% (11)

Gather and storing evidence of

non-academic achievements and

experiences

54% (29) 33% (18) 13% (7)

Reflecting upon and analysing

your progress across the course

50% (27) 30% (16) 20% (11)

Reflecting upon and analysing 50% (27) 30% (16) 20% (11)

http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/jhaywood/papers/The%20Learning%20Landscape%20preprint.pdf

http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/jhaywood/papers/The%20Learning%20Landscape%20preprint.pdf


25

your progress in specific modules

Identifying general aspects of

your academic learning that need

to be improved

48% (26) 31% (17) 20% (11)

Presenting evidence of your skills

and experience to potential

employers

48% (26) 19% (10) 33% (18)

Building a picture of yourself and

your learning

46% (25) 26% (14) 28% (15)

Writing a CV 44% (24) 32% (17) 24% (13)

Planning strategies for further

academic learning

41% (22) 33% (18) 26% (14)

Gathering resources for

assignments

33% (18) 37% (20) 30% (16)

Getting feedback on your work

from other students

33% (18) 33% (18) 33% (18)

Working together with others on a

joint project

33% (18) 39% (21) 28% (15)

‘you just knew what you had to write’- reflective learning and e-portfolio in the social...

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