Portfolio : dokumenterad utveckling eller utvecklande dokumentation

By making interviews with ten-year-old pupils we tried to analyse how they value, understand and use the portfolio method. We also wanted to know if these results match the aims of the board of education, the school administration and the teachers. Our main questions were: · Whose demands does the portfolio method meet? · What kinds of demands are met? · What does this method mean to the pupils? · Have the pupils understood the aims of the portfolio method? · Is the portfolio method the suitable tool to make children think reflectively? In order to be able to make this study in an unbiassed way we adopted a qualitative method with an inductive aim and direction. Our study led to a conclusive hypothesis. We made interviews with 15 pupils, two teachers and one official in the municipality administration. We found out that pupils at the age of ten do not understand the aim of the portfolio method. Nor do they need to record their own development, although they appreciate their portfolios and take pride in what they have recorded. In other words; portfolios have a greater affective than developing value to the pupils. From these findings we put forward this hypothesis: From the point of view of ten-year-old pupils a portfolio is documented development rather than documents that develop