Students’ and mentors’ perceived value of a reflective e-portfolio

Reflective capacity is considered an essential characteristic of competent professional practice, and is important in the development of professional behaviour. Considering the influence of reflection on the development of deep learning, adult learning and other aspects of professionalism, teaching and assessment tools should be introduced in higher education to develop reflection to enable learners to reap the benefit from its proper practice. Within the present research project, a reflective e-portfolio was created as a tool to develop and assess students’ reflection in the postgraduate orthodontic programme in the School of Dentistry, Cardiff University, UK. The reflective e-portfolio encourages students to develop the habits of open and honest deep reflection thus enabling the identification of areas of strength and weakness and the creation of a plan for their personal, educational and career development. Furthermore it provides an ideal context to assess reflective ability as a key component of professionalism. Students’ and staff members’ acceptability and perceptions of the new educational and assessment tool were analysed with the aim to improve prior to wider application.