Early Childhood Teachers' Portfolio Practices and Predictors / Prácticas y Predictores del Uso de Portafolios por Parte del Profesorado de Educación Infantil

Abstract

Portfolio is one of the common forms of pedagogical documentation around the world. The current study explores early childhood teachers' portfolio practices and related predictors using quantitative methodologies. Data were collected from 605 early childhood teachers through developed scales, while descriptive statistics, MANOVA and hierarchical multiple regression were utilized for data analysis. As a result, it was revealed that intention and self-efficacy beliefs were significant predictors of teachers' portfolio practices, whereas teachers' portfolio practices did not change significantly with respect to their teaching experience. Furthermore, teachers using portfolio assessment had high scores in internal constructs (i.e., attitudes, beliefs) compared to those who did not use portfolios. Therefore, it was concluded that internal factors play a significant role in teachers' effectiveness with the use of portfolio assessment. El portafolio es uno de los formatos m & aacute;s habituales de documentaci & oacute;n pedag & oacute;gica en todo el mundo. En este estudio se exploran las pr & aacute;cticas de los docentes de Educaci & oacute;n Infantil en materia de portafolios, as & iacute; como los predictores vinculados a su uso, aplicando metodolog & iacute;as cuantitativas. Mediante diversas escalas se recabaron datos de 605 docentes de Educaci & oacute;n Infantil, mientras que para el an & aacute;lisis de datos se utilizaron estad & iacute;sticas descriptivas, an & aacute;lisis MANOVA y la regresi & oacute;n jer & aacute;rquica m & uacute;ltiple. Los resultados revelan que la intenci & oacute;n y las creencias de autoeficacia docente eran predictores significativos de las pr & aacute;cticas vinculadas al portafolio, mientras que estas pr & aacute;cticas no difer & iacute;an significativamente en funci & oacute;n de su experiencia did & aacute;ctica. Asimismo, los docentes que hac & iacute;an uso de portafolios en su evaluaci & oacute;n obten & iacute;an puntuaciones m & aacute;s altas en los constructos internos (actitudes, creencias) que quienes no lo hac & iacute;an. Por tanto, se concluye que los factores internos desempe & ntilde;an un rol importante en la efectividad del docente respecto a la evaluaci & oacute;n mediante portafolios.