Developing an e-portfolio platform in preschool education and examining teachers' knowledge, skills and attitudes towards e-portfolio use

The aim of this study is to develop an e-portfolio platform for the developmental assessment of children, in which preschool teachers are included in the development and implementation process, and to examine the effects of teachers' knowledge and skills about assessment processes in early childhood education and their attitudes towards the use of technological tools and equipment on the e-portfolio teaching process. The study group consisted of 17 teachers working in kindergartens or classrooms affiliated to the Ministry of National Education. The research was conducted with collaborative action research, one of the qualitative research methods. Quantitative measurements were made to determine the effects of the e-portfolio action plan teaching process on the participating teachers' attitudes towards the use of technological tools and their knowledge of evaluating children. In the qualitative part, semi-structured and focus group interviews were conducted with the teachers. The teaching process action plan of the e-portfolio platform developed by the researcher was carried out twice a week for eight weeks. The online sessions were recorded by the researcher and diaries were created. Before the e-portfolio action plan teaching process, the Attitude Scale Towards the Use of Technological Tools and Equipment in Preschool Education and the Child Recognition and Assessment Knowledge Test (CRAT) were administered to the teachers as pre-tests, and after the eight-week action plan process, the same tests were administered again as post-tests. Content analysis method was used to analyze qualitative data, while Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze quantitative data. The results of the study revealed that an e-portfolio platform was developed in collaboration with the participating preschool teachers. Compared to paper/pencil-based portfolios, the e-portfolio platform eliminated the difficulties faced by teachers in terms of storage space, time management, objective evaluation, and provided user-friendly, comprehensive evaluation tools and functional contributions in line with the opinions of teachers. The results of the quantitative analysis show that the implementation of the e-portfolio action plan led to statistically significant increases in participating teachers' attitudes towards the use of technological tools and in their knowledge of recognizing and assessing children. In light of these results, it is recommended that user-friendly, comprehensive assessment tools and functional e-portfolio platforms should be developed and their use should be expanded.