Abstract
The purposes of this study were to identify and analyze students' attitudes and satisfaction to the portfolio process and assessment for the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course at Ewha Womans University School of Medicine in Seoul, Korea. The subjects consisted of 64 medical school students. Questionnaires consisting of 20 5-point Likert-type items were developed, including three question domains: 1) orientation, 2) portfolios in general, 3) individualized feedback. The mean and median were found and frequency analysis was performed to identify the common characteristics of the participants. A major finding was that 54.7% of the respondents felt that the self-reflection involved in building the portfolio was a valuable learning experience. Plus, the majority of respondents perceived that the individualized feedback had a positive tone and its contents were specific, practical, and constructive. The students perceived that building and writing portfolios heightened their understanding of exit learning outcomes and enhanced their reflective thinking and self-directed learning skills. Meanwhile, some students perceived that there was too much paperwork in the portfolio process and that the process was time consuming. Furthermore, 32.8% of the respondents said that they had difficulty establishing their learning strategies by themselves and self-directing their learning during the portfolio process. In conclusion, it is expected that building a portfolio can help students not only to enhance their ability to accumulate and use their personal learning resources but also to develop the professional qualities required by doctors, such as self-directed learning, self-reflection, lifelong learning, team work, organizational skills, time management and prioritization, and professional thinking and behavior.