The “friend of zone of proximal development” role: ePortfolios as boundary objects
Abstract
This research investigates how a role called "friend of zone of proximal development" (ZPD), assigned to one student in a peer partnership, supports the transition from university to professional life. Two near‐identical blended courses are compared. In Course 1 (6 F, 3 M), the friend of ZPD role was introduced into the ePortfolio structure. In Course 2 (6 F, 3 M), this role was not introduced. Students taking up the "friend of ZPD" role offered comments and advice. A total of 790 notes, posted by 9 students (average age: 24) for each course, were analysed. Through a quantitative analysis of the notes, we identify 3 emerging identity positions: I‐as‐university learner; I‐as‐informal learner; and I‐as‐future professional. Course 1 registered a higher number of identity positions, and the I‐as‐future‐professional position was the most frequent. Further, sudents who predominantly took up the I‐as‐university‐learner position had the lowest grades. Findings suggest that a poor projection towards the profession may compromise student learning outcomes.
Lay Description
Currently known about the subject matter
- The literature has focused on how ePortfolio tool can demonstrate employability skills and facilitate job searching.
- There is need to explore new ways of expanding research into ePortfolios and to evaluate their effectiveness in student learning.
What their paper adds to this
- ePortfolios act as a border artefact between learning and professional contexts to develop professional skills and competence.
- Identity is expressed in ePortfolios, and it could be retraced in identity position (as‐university learner; as‐informal learner; and as‐future professional)
- The identity position as‐future professional is the most frequent identity position in the ePortfolios.
- The role of “Friend of Zone of Proximal Development” supports the transition from university student identity to professional identity.
Finally, the implications of study findings for practitioners
- The collaborative dimension is supportive in the construction of the ePortfolio and its influence on the expression of identity.
- The role of “Friend of Zone of Proximal Development” offers peer scaffolding and immediate feedback
- This role strengthens a sense of collaboration and community through a structured task and time frame.
- Participants feel more involved in ePortfolio construction because they are committed not only to their own ePortfolio but also that of the person by whom they have been chosen.
1 INTRODUCTION
Widely used in both academic and professional settings, a portfolio is a systematic and targeted collection of work samples documenting student success and progress across time. In recent years, portfolios have developed alongside technology, evolving into electronic or ePortfolios. An ePortfolio is defined as “a digital container capable of and auditory content including text, images, video, and sound” (Abrami & Barrett, 2005, p. 2). The ePortfolio has the advantage of greater flexibility, making it widely used at all levels of education including tertiary. Indeed, this tool allows students to demonstrate their talent, creativity, and individuality as well as their technological capacity (Lambert, Depaepe, Lambert, & Anderson, 2007).
In education, the value of portfolios and ePortfolios has been widely documented, especially as a tool for reflection and for sharing learning outcomes (Fitch, Reed, Peet, & Tolman, 2008). In professional contexts, literature has focused on how this tool can demonstrate employability skills and facilitate job searching (Hallam & Creagh, 2010; Lievens, 2014). However, the role played by ePortfolios in identity development has received relatively little attention. Indeed, ontological issues have long been left in the unexamined background of sociocultural research generally and in higher education specifically where the focus has arguably been on knowledge rather than learning, and there is a tendency to treat learning as unproblematic (Dall Alba & Barnacle, 2007; Herrenkohl & Mertl, 2010).
Tertiary education aims to prepare students to take up professional positions, and certainly, this involves supporting learners to develop professional knowledge, skills, and competencies (for an example in a curriculum discipline, see Bennett, Rowley, Dunbar‐Hall, Hitchcock, & Blom, 2016). However, “becoming” a professional also involves ontological development as students take up particular “ways of thinking, acting and being” (Dall Alba & Barnacle, 2007, p. 684) associated with a professional role. We suggest that the approach to ePortfolios outlined in this paper not only cultivates learners' professional knowledge and skills, but also their professional identities. In so doing, learners are better supported to transition from university to professional life.
To make the role of ePortfolios visible in this more holistic stance on learning, it is important to consider more than one theoretical perspective because no single sociocultural approach deals equally with both the epistemological and ontological elements of human learning (Aróstegui, Stake, & Simons, 2004; Packer & Goicoechea, 2000). Thus, drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, including dialogical self theory and broader sociocultural perspectives, can support a more nuanced interrogation of the role ePortfolios can play in supporting students to develop the necessary knowledge, skills, and dispositions for professional life. Further, from a methodological point of view, integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches can provide a richer and more multifaceted understanding of how ePortfolios are conceived and used by students (Gardner & Aleksejuniene, 2008).
Thus, this paper takes a sociocultural approach to investigating and describing how ePortfolios operate as a tool for boundary crossing, illustrating how ePortfolios can facilitate not only epistemological learning, but also identity transformation as students transition from learner to professional through student–student and student–teacher interaction (Ajello & Belardi, 2011; Akkerman & Bakker, 2011). In this way, we respond to Chen, Watson, and Garrison's (2014) call to expand research into and evaluate the impact of ePortfolios in educational contexts.
We first analyse how ePortfolios act as a boundary objects between learning and professional contexts. We then focus on how participants take up identities in response to the transactions mediated by ePortfolios. Finally, we consider how the role “friend of ZPD” enhances the collaboration mediated by the ePortfolio as learners take up professional identities.
2 EPORTFOLIOS AS A BOUNDARY OBJECT
Four distinct but closely‐related themes are apparent in educational research into ePortfolios: reflection, documentation, collaboration, and mentoring (Zubizarreta, 2004). Scholarly literature has found that ePortfolios can support reflexive self‐evaluation, self‐regulation, and critical‐thinking: skills that support active student participation in the learning process (Jenson, 2011; Singer‐Freeman & Bastone, 2017). For example, by promoting ”folio thinking” (Chen, 2004)—the mental habit of creating connections between experiences, skills, and artefacts—ePortfolios actively engage students in formative assessment, rather than positioning them as “passive receivers of graded results” (Pelliccione & Dixon, 2008, p. 752).
Sociocultural perspectives conceive ePortfolios as artefacts with a specific function in the learning process: specifically, transacting towards professional contexts. Such a stance views ePortfolios as a “boundary object” with material or symbolic dimensions, enabling people and systems to construct shared thought and action. Star and Griesemer (1989) contend that shared thought and action connects different aspects of an educational interaction: for example, between formal educational settings and professional contexts. Through ePortfolios, it is possible to develop and pursue goals shared by various stakeholders, such as students and teachers, or the educational setting and the productive system it addresses. In this way, ePortfolios reflect Wenger's (Wenger, 1998, 2000) definition of boundary objects as artefacts, documents, terms, concepts, and other forms of reification around which communities of practices organize their interconnections and knowledge. Boundary objects have several characteristics that are reflected in ePortfolios:
- Modularity: ePortfolios can be structured into several topics or folders, spread throughout the course.
- Complexity: While ePortfolios have a concrete and material dimension, they are also closely aligned with more abstract cognitive processes, such as assessment.
- Adaptability to different purposes and genres: For students, ePortfolios stimulate reflection while for teachers, ePortfolios support formative and summative assessment as well as feedback (Wenger, 1998, 2000).
Supported by teachers and tutors, students express their reflections and reasoning in ePortfolios. This makes visible not only what students learn but also how they learn, as well as opening up ways of understanding students' sense of who they are as learners and as future professionals and citizens. Thus, ePortfolios can be understood as an artefact capable of supporting dialogue between teachers and students and between university and professional contexts.
In the next section, we focus more closely on the relationship between learning and identity in relation to the university‐to‐work transaction. This is particularly interesting because it is a dimension that becomes visible in the ePortfolio narratives of university students.
3 USING EPORTFOLIOS TO DEVELOP A PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
Increasingly, ePortfolios are being used in university learning curricula. This reflects the value they offer in supporting both student reflection on skills and competencies and teacher feedback and assessment. As such, ePortfolios respond to the tertiary aims of ensuring students, are effectively prepared, develop the necessary skills to become a real professional, and attain the expected learning outcomes. In this way, ePortfolios can support tertiary institutions to improve student employability by providing (a) basic and sophisticated self‐assessment and self‐directed learning skills, (b) the capacity to organize work in a flexible way, (c) digital skills, and (d) an opportunity to capitalize on social interactions.
Learning is closely linked to, and arguably inseparable from, identity (Brown & Campione, 1990; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Ligorio, Loperfido, & Sansone, 2013). Learners begin to construct a professional identity within educational contexts because “educational institutions cannot help but promote ways of being” (Dall Alba & Barnacle, 2007, p. 689). Cultivating a sense of who we are—and are becoming—is a continuous process of interpretation that does not have a stable character but is complex and shaped by personal and contextual factors (Rhoades, 2007). In the transaction from university to professional life, the question of who students can become is strongly influenced by the communities and institutions of which students are members (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004; Kogan, 2000). Supporting learners to take up professional identities is thus a critical but under‐interrogated role played by tertiary institutions. Being a professional involves more than understanding concepts and developing skills; it involves personal transformation as students become teachers, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and so on (Dall Alba & Barnacle, 2007). We suggest ePortfolios can be both learning tools and tools for self‐making, providing an opportunity to explore and understand how students engage with and express these identity transformations (Mclay, Renshaw, & Phillips, 2016; Singer‐Freeman, Bastone, & Skrivanek, 2016).
3.1 Identity and positions in ePortfolios
To investigate identity in ePortfolios, dialogical self theory offers useful conceptual tools (Hermans, 1996). This perspective views the self as comprised of complex and dynamic I‐positions. These I‐positions are relatively autonomous within a panorama of ever‐shifting identity. Dialogical self theory sees the self as moving from one position to another in response to changing interlocutors, time, and events (Hermans, Kempen, & Van Loon, 1992). Each I‐position is equipped with a voice, and all these voices can engage in dialogic exchange, akin to different characters in the same story who wonder, negotiate, cooperate, and sometimes compete. In terms of taking up new I‐positions, two circumstances make the self “open to innovation”: first, the inclusion of external identity positions that introduce different knowledge and information, second, new ideas or external events. Depending on these factors, the self may re‐evaluate its internal positions and, because of the interconnection between positions, redefine the overall identity. At the same time, the self is constantly engaged in synthesizing activity that makes the self consistent. This activity is made possible by various forms and expressions of narrative, including digital writing (Ligorio et al., 2013).
Given the central role that narrative plays in identity processes, we are interested in identity positions expressed by university students in an ePortfolio created during a university course. Students' writing in ePortfolios contains information, reflections, and ideas that reveal interesting narratives around identity. In terms of the social dimension, explored in the next section, we focus on the role of peers in supporting identity expression and consider shifts in identity positions that occur in response to the challenging experience of maintaining an ePortfolio.
3.2 Peer roles and social support in ePortfolios
Peer feedback has been used extensively in many different fields, including written composition and is considered a reliable and valid approach to assessment and teaching (Tseng & Tsai, 2007; Yang, 2010). Peer feedback can be timely and individualized (Topping, 1998), encouraging students to take increased responsibility for their own progress and can broaden and deepen student reflection. In higher education, ePortfolios can facilitate interprofessional collaboration and improve learners' critical thinking skills as they comment on one another's work (Chen, Wei, Wu, & Uden, 2009; Karsten et al., 2015).
In terms of student outcomes, learner–learner interaction outperforms learner–instructor interaction in blended learning (Bernard, Borokhovski, Schmid, Tamim, & Abrami, 2014). Further, the feeling of being connected to peers is positively related to online learning and effective learning (Johnson, Hornik, & Salas, 2008; Rovai, 2002). To achieve such results, online participation should be positive and productive. For instance, the interactions should be encouraging, supportive, constructively critical, and reflective (Johnson & Johnson, 2009). The relational dimension contributes to the creation of a psychologically supportive environment for learners, activing social capital which is “the networks, together with shared norms, values, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit, within and between groups” (Tett & Maclachlan, 2007, p. 151).
This scholarly work indicates that peer interaction is best structured in ways that enrich the ePortfolio experience as much as possible. We suggest that our approach to structuring ePortfolios, which incorporates the “friend of ZPD” role, cultivates rich and productive peer interaction. A detailed description of the structure is offered in the following section.
3.3 ePortfolios in a blended university course
The courses analysed in this research were offered in blended mode, specifically designed to integrate and combine online and in‐person learning and teaching (Bersin, 2004). The online activities were supported by an online collaborative learning platform provided by a German company (www.fit.fraunhofer.de; Ligorio & Sansone, 2009). The course incorporated different methods of teaching and learning (individual, in dyads, group work, and plenary activities), a range of tasks, and a variety of artefacts. Given the importance of teamwork in enabling collaborative learning, participants were divided into groups to carry out various collaborative activities, such as collaborative writing and constructing shared products (Dillenbourg, 1999). Each student was required to be active in his or her own group and to take responsibility for the achievement of common goals. This was facilitated through role‐oriented activities. For example, the role of leader took responsibility for the construction of a shared product, while the role of peer–tutor involved leading group discussion (Sansone, Ligorio, & Buglass, 2016).
The courses, which focused on educational learning and e‐learning, were elective offerings in a Master of Work Psychology at a public university. The courses were divided into five modules. Module 1 was designed as a “warm up” for students, to help them understand the online environment and become familiar with the structure of the course. This was crucial for students' participation (Ellis, Pardo, & Han, 2016). Module 2 to Module 5 explored aspects of e‐learning relevant to professional psychologists: for example, models of online learning, blended learning and mobile learning, educational value of serious games and internet of things. The main goal of each module was to explore not only theory around the educational value of technology, but also the practical implications—particularly in organizational contexts.
Each module ran for approximately 10 days and was introduced by a face‐to‐face lecture. This was followed by a group debate via web forum, which was coordinated by an expert e‐tutor who had been trained to facilitate such interactions. At the end of each module, teacher and expert tutors compiled and published an assessment grid with feedback to students designed to improve their performance in the subsequent module (Ligorio & Sansone, 2009).
The relevance of student self‐reflection and self‐evaluation is foregrounded through continuous updating of individual ePortfolios, which had a specific structure and clearly defined activities (Impedovo, Ritella, & Ligorio, 2013). The ePortfolios were structured in the following way: (a) a personal section, in which students were free to add personal information to share within the learning community; (b) a quantitative self‐assessment section where students could post a self‐evaluation form prepared by the teacher and self‐updated at the end of each module; (c) a qualitative self‐assessment section where students posted reflections about their own “Zone of Actual Development” (what they think they learned in each module) as well as areas of potential improvement or “Zone of Proximal Development” (their aims and goals for the subsequent module). Both these last two sections are clearly inspired by Vygotsky (1986). This ePortfolio structure is the result of more than 10 years of testing, during which time feedback from students, teachers, and expert tutors has been collected at the end of each course and implemented in subsequent iterations.
During the 2014–2015 academic year, the “friend of the zone proximal development” role (hereafter referred to as “friend of ZPD role”) was introduced. This role is designed to enhance collaboration within the the ePortfolio; in previous course iterations, collaboration was confined to the asymmetrical relationship between tutors or teacher and students. Grounded in and inspired by Vygotsky (1986), this role is assigned to a peer student selected by each ePortfolio author. The selected peer's role is to help monitor the ePortfolio and provide feedback for improvement: in particular, in the section that explores the author student's ZPD. Each participant chooses her or his own “friend of ZPD” without any constraint of reciprocity. This role makes self‐reflection more social, as it requires close interaction with the chosen peer. The “friend of ZPD” expresses personal opinions in a purpose‐built web forum, offering comments, tips, and advice to improve their partner's skills, as well as supporting goal setting for the next module. In addition, taking on this role encourages the student to discuss, clarify, and explain concepts encountered during the course; this contributes to the development of epistemological sensitivity (Sandoval, 2014).
4 THE RESEARCH
In this section, we outline our research aims, the rationale for participant selection, the corpus of data, and methods of analysis.
4.1 Research aims
The aim of this research is to analyse the identity positions expressed in ePortfolios and understand the influence of the role, “friend of ZPD”. The research was guided by two research questions:
- Which I‐positions emerge in ePortfolios, clearly understood as an educational tool?
- How does the collaborative dimension, supported by the presence of a “friend of ZPD”, influence the identity positions taken up by students relative to a near‐identical course that does not incorporate the “friend of ZPD” into collaborative dimension?
To answer these two questions, identity positions have been traced in all ePortfolios collected in the two courses: one with and one without the “friend of ZPD” role. This approach supports consideration of the collaborative dimension in the construction of an ePortfolio and its influence on the expression of identity positions. Further, to better understand the impact of this role, we looked at the trajectories of I‐positions across the modules and interrogated the correlation between these I‐positions and the final score students achieved in their course. In these ways, we sought to understand the extent to which
- I‐positions related to both formal learning and professional contexts would emerge in and be supported by the ePortfolio.
- the collaborative dimension between students would foster the emergence of more I‐positions, as the “friend of ZPD” suggested improvements that were not confined to cognitive learning processes but also involved personal and professional attitudes and dispositions. Related to this was our interest in which I‐positions the “friend of ZPD” would most frequently taken up by the ePortfolio author: that is, the I‐as‐university‐learner position or the I‐as‐professional position.
4.2 Participants
The ePortfolios of 18 university students (12 F; 6 M) with an average age of 24 were selected and examined. Two almost identical courses were compared: Course 1 (C1) with the “friend of ZPD” role and Course 2 (C2) without this role. From each course, nine students were selected (Course 1: 6 F, 3 M; Course 2: 6 F, 3 M). To understand the relationship between I‐positions and learning results, students were grouped according to their final score—high, medium, and low—and for each of these groups, three students were selected, as reported in Table 1.
| C1 | C2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent score | 3 | 3 |
| Medium score | 3 | 3 |
| Low score | 3 | 3 |
| Total | 9 | 9 |
- Note. C1 = Course 1; C2 = Course 2.
4.3 Data
The corpus of data analysed consists of 517 notes produced by C1 and 273 notes by C2—a total of 790 notes. These notes were posted in the qualitative self‐assessment section of the ePortfolios where students were required to state what they believed they had learned and their goals for and expectations of the subsequent modules and activities. Given the modular structure of both courses, the notes from each course were clustered according to three temporal phases: T1 (Module 1), T2 (Modules 2 and 3), and T3 (Modules 4 and 5). For a summary, see Table 2.
| Typology | Participants and ePortfolio | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Course 1 (C1) with the friend of ZPD role | 9 (6 F, 3 M) | 517 |
| Course 2 (C2) without the role | 9 (6 F, 3 M) | 273 |
| Total | 18 | 790 |
- Note. ZPD = zone of proximal development.
4.4 Analysis
Because of the discursive nature of our data and the large number of notes, we adopted a mixed‐method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. Our method consisted of three phases:
Reading the corpus. Two researchers, familiar with the aims and the theoretical background of the research, were involved in several cycles of reading the notes produced by the students. This phase aimed at developing broad categories for the I‐positions emerging from the data.
Definition of the positions. During this phase, a definitive set of I‐positions emerging from the data was established. Table 3 reports the three identity positions: I‐as‐university learner, I‐as‐informal learner, and I‐as‐future professional. Each position is reported with a short description and examples drawn from the data.
| Identity positions | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I‐as‐university learner | Learning is related to the experience of being a university student and to this course specifically. Learning goals are the acquisition of knowledge and the performance of tasks imposed by the course. | “I am happy and confident in the new modality of this course. I think I will learn a lot!” |
| I‐as‐informal learner | Learning is related to personal life and is defined in terms of personal development and change. The goals of learning are increasing soft skills and overall growth. | “Since I started this course, there are people telling me that I have changed my way of thinking: less mental barriers, less self‐limiting thoughts (for example, I'll never be good with the technology and now here I am)” |
| I‐as‐future professional | Learning is conceived in relation to professional skills and future projection of using these skills in a work setting. | “I am now developing many skills that will definitely be useful tomorrow, in a professional context, such as working in groups.” |
These identity positions were systematically tracked in the corpus of data by two researchers working independently of one another. Inter‐coder reliability was calculated using Krippendorff's alpha, and this resulted in 0.80. The remaining doubtful cases were resolved with the support of a third researcher to reach final agreement.
Quantitative analysis. Once the final list of identity positions was developed, we counted the occurrences. We opted for nonparametric statistical measurements, using (a) the Mann–Whitney test (defined with the abbreviation “U”)—the analogous, nonparametric Student t test to establish the existence of differences in the localization for independent samples; (b) the test of Friedman (1937) to detect trends of identity positions during the development of the courses; we adopted the Huynh‐Feldt procedure for various corrections in the case of small samples; and (c) the test of repeated measures (acronym R. M.) to find specific trends (or categories) in identity positions in the courses. All these analyses were performed with the SPSS software.
5 RESULTS
In this section, we articulate the results of our data analysis. The quantitative analysis considers the occurrences and trends of I‐positions in C1 and C2 and the distribution of identity positions across the course. The qualitative analysis highlights the impact of the “friend of ZPD” role in C1.
5.1 Quantitative analysis: Occurrences and trends
Our analysis shows a significant difference between I‐positions in the ePortfolios from C1 and C2 (U = 15.5; Mr = 024*). C1—with the friend of ZPD role—contained more I‐positions than C2. The difference between the two groups is significant, particularly in relation to the I‐as‐university‐learner and I‐as‐future‐professional positions (see Table 4). The distribution of I‐as‐informal learner position (U = 25.50; Sig. = 190) was not significantly different across the two courses.
| N | R. M. | Mann–Whitney | Sig. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I‐as‐university positions | learner | C1 | 9 | 7.22 | 20,00 | .047* |
| C2 | 9 | 11.78 | ||||
| I‐as‐future positions | professional | C1 | 9 | 6.22 | 11,00 | .008* |
| C2 | 9 | 12.78 | ||||
- Note. C1 = Course 1; C2 = Course 2; R. M. = repeated measures.
To understand the correlation between I‐positions and students' final scores, we collapsed the two courses (C1 and C2) together for a more reliable sample. A significant correlation between I‐as‐university learner and low grades was found. In contrast, those students adopting the I‐as‐future‐professional learner position achieved higher assessment outcomes. No significant correlation for I‐as‐informal learner was found.
5.2 Distribution of identity positions across the course
After dividing the courses into three phases (T1 = Module 1; T2 = Modules 2 and 3; T3 = Modules 4 and 5), we applied the test of repeated measures to observe the distribution of identity positions across the courses. Significantly, when comparing C1 and C2, we observed that in both courses, the occurrence of I‐as‐university learner decreases in the final phase (Figure 1).
Figure 2 displays the trend of I‐as‐future‐professional learner. In this figure, it is evident that this I‐position is increasingly taken up in both courses. Further, the difference between the two courses is significant (F = 9.184, Sig. = 008*; see Table 5). No significant correlation or change in trend was found for the I‐as‐informal‐learner position across the three phases of each course.
| Test effects of within‐subject | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huynh‐Feldt | Df (degrees of freedom) | F | Sig. | |
| I‐as‐future‐professional learner | 2 | 18.008 | .000* | |
| I‐as‐future‐learner *C1 versus C2 | 2 | 1.601 | .217 | |
| Test of effects between‐subjects | ||||
| C1 versus C2 | 1 | 9.184 | .008* | |
- Note. C1 = Course 1; C2 = Course 2.
- * to catch attention on the relevant data.
These results indicate that there is a correlation between the “friend of ZPD” role and two of the three positions: I‐as‐university‐learner and I‐as‐future‐professional learner. The introduction of “friend of ZPD” role in C1 seems to have a positive effect, with more identity positions taken up generally and professional I‐positions specifically. To better understand how the “friend of ZPD” role may affect the identity positions taken up by participant students, the following section reports and comments on some of the interactions involving students in the “friends of ZPD” role.
5.3 Impact of the friend of ZPD role
In this section, we look more closely at the influence of the “friend of ZPD” role by considering some student utterances from C1. In particular, we focus on those students who most frequently took up professional I‐positions in their role as “friend of ZPD”. The following comment (Extract 1) is one example:
Extract 1
When you summarise the work you have done, you could also add, in a few sentences, how you approach your work, how you organize your time. This type of information may lead a company to notice you. (Note 1 by the “friend of ZPD”)
The student to whom this remark was addressed replied in this way:
Extract 2
Yes, you are absolutely right. I will try to incorporate these suggestions. To be honest, I am not very keen on this type of reflection. But, this is an issue about my personal preferences and I want to overcome it. Therefore, in the next modules I will put your advice into practice. Thank you so much. (Note 2 by the ePortfolio author)
In this exchange, we suggest that the “friend of ZPD” takes up the position, I‐as‐future‐learner professional, suggesting that the ePortfolio author adopt both practices and dispositions associated with self‐reflection and self monitoring. The “friend of ZPD” puts these practices explicitly in relationship to the possibility that a company may value such an approach, thus clearly summoning the position, I‐as‐future‐learner professional. The ePortfolio author takes this advice seriously, indicating that this action involves a change in her way of being and therefore in her learner identity—she must take on new learner behaviours and dispositions despite being “not very keen on this type of reflection.” However, the ePortfolio author expresses a willingness to shift her learner preferences and identity because of the potential impact on her professional trajectory. This giving and receiving of feedback illustrates the ways in which I‐positions shift, not only within the actor, but also in relation to other actors.
The relational nature of I‐positions is beautifully illustrated in the following exchange captured in a different student's ePortfolio:
Extract 3
Hi, I really appreciated a lot your work on the analysis of the discussion. It was well articulated and your commitment was visible. I also noticed you improved the way you organise and present the concepts. Initially, I had the impression you had many interesting ideas to express but you did it in a rather confused way. But now you have improved and you express your self in a clear and direct way.
Here, the “friend of ZPD” foregrounds and affirms the ePortfolio author's progress—an utterance that reflects the original intent of the “friend of ZPD” role as we conceived it. The term “friend” suggests both benevolence and a more balanced power dynamic between the interactants than the traditional hegemony of teacher and student. Here, the “friend of ZPD” does not explicitly take up an I‐position associated with a professional context. While affirming and encouraging, the utterance arguably refers more to the author's performance in the university context. However, the ePortfolio author appears to position the utterance in relation to the professional world. Consider the response below:
Extract 4
This course is giving us the opportunity to acquire new competencies and it would be a pity not to be aware of them … I know I have to improve my writing skills so I can articulate my skills properly. I believe that when you develop your own competencies, as we are doing, you should learn also how to report them. It is hard and we have to help each other with this. I'll be waiting for your further considerations on this and, in the meantime I am getting ready for a new adventure: I am going to follow a course on technology for learning and work!
This interaction started with a reflection on the improvement in the ePortfolio author's structure and sequencing of ideas and concepts. Interestingly, the focus evolved to encompass a more general awareness of the professional competencies acquired and how these can best be foregrounded. This is significant because it illustrates a dialogic relationship between the two I‐positions, I‐as‐student and I‐as‐professional. Being able to clearly and effectively articulate the knowledge, skills, and competencies acquired in formal education contexts is critical to successfully transitioning to professional life—it is a key part of becoming a professional. Being able to express and place value on what you know and can do is crucial in curricula and professional profiles, such as on LinkedIn. As such, the ePortfolio author's expressed intention to attend a professional course on technology indicates a clear move toward a professional position, which is closely connected to the professional competencies the course wants to shape. We don't ascribe this shift to a cause–effect relationship between the author and the “friend of ZPD”. What we do suggest is that these utterances make a possible connection visible between these dialogic interactions and the decision to continue professional development beyond the course.
We consider this just a few examples of how the “friend of ZPD” role may support an identity shift from a formal or informal learner position, to a professional learner position through the dialogic exchanges of various I‐positions both within and between individuals. The development of a professionally oriented I‐position opens up possible trajectories of becoming a professional and in this sense, we suggest that the “friend of ZPD” role can make a valuable contribution to the role played by ePortfolios as boundary objects by making visible and supporting participants to take up and articulate various learner and professional I‐positions through dialogic exchange.
6 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have described how our research demonstrates how ePortfolios can be a boundary crossing tool that supports the transition from university to the professional world. Focusing on identity positions, we examined 18 ePortfolios developed within two blended university courses. To understand and describe the influence of the social dimension on the reflection triggered by the dialogic process of maintaining an ePortfolio, we contrasted two versions of the same course (C1 and C2), where the “friend of ZPD” role was introduced only in C1.
Considering the first research question through qualitative analysis, we identified and tracked three identity positions emerging from the data (I‐as‐university learner, I‐as‐informal learner, and I‐as‐future professional learner). The frequency of these positions was analysed by comparing the two courses, considering the temporal distributions across three phases of each course and correlating these to student learning outcomes.
To respond to the second research question, the main results of this study show that in C1 (with the “friend of ZPD” role) more positions were recorded compared with C2. As such, we suggest that the “friend of the ZPD” role may encourage and cultivate the expression of positioning in general. We also suggest that the “friend of ZPD” role may contribute to participants more readily taking up I‐as‐future‐professional positions, as these were more numerous in C1 than in C2. Therefore, we consider that this role may enhance the impact of ePortfolios as a boundary object.
Further, we found a common path—in both C1 and C2—that sees a reduction of the I‐as‐university‐learner position throughout the course. Conversely, there was an increased occurrence of the I‐as‐future‐professional learner position. However, this is more evident in C1, adding weight to our contention that the “friend of ZPD” role promotes projection towards a future profession.
Finally, there is a correlation between low grades and I‐as‐university learner positions and a correlation between high grades and I‐as‐future‐professional learner positions. These correlations are interesting because they suggest that in courses of this type, a poor projection towards the profession may hinder students' capacity to reach higher learning outcomes.
In conclusion, we suggest that building a collaborative structure into the ePortfolio through the “friend of ZPD” role enhances the ePortfolio's capacity to act as a boundary object. As Ajello and Belardi (2011) have contended, this function is activated by eliciting a transaction from university to work, detectable through a progressive decrease in university learner positions and a corresponding increase in professional learner positions. Our data and analysis indicate that comments and suggestions coming from a peer and legitimated by the structure of the course are not limited to strictly cognitive knowledge and skills associated with the formal learning context. Rather, the dialogic exchanges captured in the ePortfolios illustrate moments of identity transformation; we catch a glimpse of participants' ontological experience of becoming a professional as they transition out of formal education.
Perhaps the impact of the “friend of ZPD” reflects the way this role engages with learning as a far more complex process than acquiring knowledge and skills in a purely epistemological sense. Unlike the teacher's role, which involves commenting largely on course‐related activities, the peer interactions captured in the ePortfolios weave together knowledge, skills, and identities as the students take up various I‐positions, both in relation to one another and in relation to their imagined, possible future selves as professionals. Therefore, through the “friend of ZPD” role, the ePortfolio supports a dialogic space in which students can discover how learning involves identity transformation—from learner to professional.
The structure we propose for the ePortfolio seems complex: it comprises many sections and demands dyad interaction. We suggest that it is important to embrace the challenges and complexities of this process because it opens up opportunities for participants to improve their capacity to manage complexity—a key skill in contemporary society. In line with this perspective, Wenger (2011) suggests moving from the curriculum dimension to a formative dimension centred on identity within a community of practice, giving a central role to the social dimension of the learning process. The “friend of ZPD” role creates a dialogic space for peer interaction and immediate feedback (Shute, 2008) by cultivating a common sense of enterprise as students work together to make sense of the university experience with a view to preparing for the future.
Although this study is based on a limited sample size, we nevertheless believe that the richness of our data indicates that this approach has significant potential. First, the idea of a role named after a powerful theoretical concept—such as Vygotsky's zone of proximal development—makes this concept, often perceived as ambiguous by educators and students, concrete and tangible. Second, this role strengthens a sense of collaboration and community through a structured task and time frame. Finally, this approach to ePortfolios seems to support empowerment. Participants feel more involved and agential because they are committed not only to their own ePortfolio, but also to that of their peer. Therefore, we suggest that introducing this role into ePortfolios is worthy of serious consideration for the value it may add to the design of blended or online learning courses.
Future research could further investigate the “friend of ZPD” role in relation to the impact of altruism, performance expectations, and social capital (Diep, Cocquyt, Zhu, & Vanwing, 2016). Indeed, we believe this role could be a powerful method of supporting and structuring peer interaction. Finally, it would be interesting to dig more deeply into the quality of peer feedback in relation to social engagement, self‐reflection, and learning motivation.
