Portfolio assessment: A catalyst for staff and curricular reform

Abstract

South Africa's gradual transition from apartheid to democracy has resulted in a steady increase in black enrollment over the year—black students will soon be a majority at the University of Cape Town (UCT). It is a well known fact that most of these students due to the legacy of apartheid education enter the university highly underprepared and that significant improvements in the educational system are not anticipated in the near future. This demographic transition has forced Academic Development (AD) at UCT to shift its role from supporting a minority of students to developing programmes which cater to the needs of all of UCT's population—both students and staff. The Writing Centre's evolving modus operandi centers around the assessment of students' writing, in the context of academic departments, as a tool for evaluating existing curricula and pedagogical approaches. This article explores how a portfolio assessment project in the Chemistry Department developed (within staff) new understandings of the role of writing as a vehicle for learning, which resulted in a reexamination of the relationship of the written assignments to the existing curriculum. Based on our experience, I offer in the conclusion some suggestions of ways in which the potential of portfolio assessment for programme evaluation may be enchanged given further research. Specifically, the paper discusses the challenges of designing assessment frameworks which are diagnostically powerful enough to assist us in the task of curriculum reconstruction.