Abstract

Portfolios are used in diverse human activities: it is a common practice among painters, cartoonists, designers, models, actors, and musicians, who select and organise sets of significant part of their work to show their skills to potential clients or employers. In the nursing teaching context, using the portfolio has a high impact, because, when properly used, it is considered an important tool for updating and developing intrapersonal, social academic and professional competences. Falchikov (2005, p.16) states that a consensual definition of portfolio was presented by Arter and Spandel who have described it as a “purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student’s efforts, progress, or achievement in (a) given area(s)”. When underlying the importance of this tool in the assessment, teaching and learning process, the same author adds the difficulty in describing a “typical” portfolio due to its personal and flexible character. Nevertheless, this may be a proper form of assessment and learning tool with a great importance in developing critical and meta-analysis skills, and other specific and generic competences. Consequently, the concept of reflection and narrative writing are closely related with the personal construction of the portfolio. Dewey has already considered reflection as an active process with the main objective of thinking on actions to promote several changes (Sá-Chaves, 2007). In the context of Nursing Practicum, a reflective narrative made by the student allows a “reflection-on-action” (Schön, 1983) and enables him/her to describe, confront and (re)construct personal and shared knowledge, leading to a personal, academic and professional awareness, development and transformation. Thus, with this paper we will present a successful learning experience developed in a Nursing Practicum through the use of the strategies of reflective portfolio and critical friendship. Therefore, we propose to present some conclusions that emerge from the analysis of written reflective narratives contained in students’ portfolios made during a Nursing Practicum. Simultaneously, we intend to reflect about the importance that the strategy of critical friendship has in the knowledge appropriation, and its impact on the construction of students’ professional identity. Accordingly, we aim to: (i) characterise the speech used by undergraduate students in the narratives they included in their portfolios; (ii) analyse students’ perspectives regarding the critical friendship strategy; and (iii) test the applicability of these pedagogical strategies in an undergraduate course.