Using Reflection and Portfolios in Practice―The Undergraduate Nursing Experience

　In September 2007, we presented a paper at the Nurse Education Tomorrow 2007 (NET 2007) Conference in Cambridge UK, discussing undergraduate nursing students' experiences of reflection and portfolio use in their educational programmes. The aim of this paper was to elucidate the personal experience of reflection and portfolio use as a component of the assessment of competence for the undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Nursing programme, from an Irish student perspective.

　In an Irish context, the portfolio is used to provide evidence of learning and is required to be presented as a component of the student's clinical assessment (An Bord Altranais, 2003). Within each portfolio, a minimum of one reflective writing piece is required in addition to supporting evidence of student learning over the course of the clinical placement. Grant & Dornan (2001) define a portfolio as a collection of a learner's work that gives evidence of learning and may be used for the purposes of assessment. According to Jasper (2006), the portfolio is a valuable tool for the promotion of reflective practice, and the use of systematic reflection using a developed framework is a key component of portfolio development (McMullan et al., 2003).