Introduction

Towards inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all have been one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nation and its member states. To achieve lifelong learning, students have to reflect on their learning experiences and beliefs (Hartnell-Young 2003) and manage their own learning throughout their lives (Hargreaves 2004). Reflection then is one of the foundational skills for lifelong learning (AAC&U 2009). It enhances students’ autonomy of learning and promotes “habits of individual and collective attention and analysis that can sustain higher education” (Roger 2001, p. 55). To develop reflective thinking in higher education, e-portfolios have been adopted as assessment for learning tools (Deneen 2013). With the advantages of storage and accessibility, e-portfolios allow students to document and showcase their learning journey across time and space. Barrett (2011) provided a comprehensive definition of e-portfolios which was adapted from Butler’s (2006, p. 2) work:

An e-portfolio electronically collects evidences of one’s learning journey over the time. Evidence may include writing samples, photos, videos, research projects, observations by mentors and peers, and/or reflective thinking…The key aspect of an e-portfolio is your reflection on the evidence, such as why it was chosen and what you learned from the process of developing an e-portfolio.

The potential of e-portfolios for enhancing students’ independent learning by reflection (Chau and Cheng 2010; Hartnell-Young and Morriss 2007) and developing ownership of learning (Shroff et al. 2014) has been widely investigated.

However, more research studies are needed to understand the different levels of reflection that are developed through e-portfolios, and the factors facilitating and hindering students’ development of reflective thinking in e-portfolios implementation (Challis 2005; Orland-Barak 2005). This paper, therefore, aims to examine how e-portfolios are integrated in an undergraduate course at a Hong Kong university to develop students’ reflective thinking. Adopting the scheme of coding and assessing the level of reflection in written work developed by Kember et al. (2008), the levels of reflection that students have developed through e-portfolios are first examined. The facilitating and hindering factors for developing students’ reflective thinking are then identified. The strategies to address the hindering factors are also discussed.

Literature review

Reflection/reflective thinking and lifelong learning

Reflection/ reflective thinking

Reflection is “an important human activity in which people recapture their experience, think about it, mull about over and evaluate it” (Boud et al 1985, p. 19). In the model of reflective process developed by Boud et al. (1985), previous experiences will be revisited (returning to experience), the feelings or emotions attached to it will be dealt with (attending feelings) before these experiences are re-evaluated (re-evaluating experiences). Besides, self-reflection is an indispensable phase of self-regulation of learning (Zimmerman 2002). The outcomes of reflection may be new understandings or insights of the experiences, behaviour change and/or commitment to action. Reflection helps students better understand themselves, their learning and motivation to learn (Fullana et al. 2016). Furthermore, reflection occurs as the foundation of continuous learning (York-Barr et al. 2006) beyond formal education. Therefore, reflection enables students to continuously make sense of their experiences and beliefs, shape new understanding and skills for action, and self-regulate their own learning (Doig et al. 2006).

To facilitate reflection, coaching and peer involvement matter (Ferraro 2000; Lamont 2007). Coaching by teacher includes giving feedback on previous experiences, feeding forward on future performance (Beckers et al. 2016), and asking critical questions to facilitate reflection (Walkington 2005). However, social and cultural context (Boud and Walker 1998), language, reflection skills, and emotion (Hourani 2013) can influence reflection. Furthermore, it is observed that gender may also influence the level of reflection (Dyment and O’Connell 2011).

Levels of reflection

As reflection is essential for lifelong learning, it is important to assess to what extent students are engaged in reflection in the course of learning. Kember et al. (2008) categorised reflection into four levels based on the analysis of students’ written reflective journals informed by previous works (Kember et al. 1999; Mezirow 1981). As seen from Table 1, reflections from low to high level are non-reflection, understanding, reflection and critical reflection. They look into the evidence of students’ understanding, theory application in the writing and personal insights, and change in viewpoint. The highest level of reflection does not frequently occur. To identify it, the “evidence of a change in perspective over a fundamental belief of the understanding of a key concept or phenomenon” (Kember et al. 2008, p. 379) is pivotal. Besides, the whole paper rather than a piece of writing from students should be examined (2008).

Table 1 Kember et al.’s (2008, p. 379) scheme of coding and assessing the level of reflection in written work
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E-portfolios for the development of reflective thinking

To support students’ development of reflective thinking for lifelong learning, e-portfolios may be integrated as an assessment tool for learning in a course. An e-portfolio is the technology-enabled product “created by the learner, a collection of digital artefacts articulating experiences, achievement and learning” (JISC 2008, p. 6). Assessment in higher education should be learning-oriented and pay heed to student engagement in the assessment process and feedback (Carless 2007). When the assessment tool like e-portfolios continuously engages students in revisiting and reflecting on their learning, students’ reflective thinking is likely to be developed.

Opportunities of e-portfolios for developing reflective thinking

E-portfolios provide students “a structure to systematically reflect on their learning process over time and to develop their aptitudes, skills and habits that come from critical reflection” (Zubizarreta 2009, p. 15). In the learning process, e-portfolios help students continuously make sense of unconnected information (Cambridge 2001), manage their learning over lifetime that foster continue and deeper learning (Jenson and Treuer 2014).

Research conducted at Hong Kong universities have found that e-portfolios supported students’ independent learning through planning, monitoring and reflection in English language courses (Chau and Cheng 2010), and showed value on building students’ ownership of learning when being used as assessment in a career development course (Shroff et al. 2014). In an American higher education institution, e-portfolios helped final year students reflect on the knowledge and skills they have learned and better understand the learning goal (Buzzetto-More 2010). Lin (2008) found in her study at an American college that students might become stimulated to engage in reflection and develop effective learning strategies. The reflective process through e-portfolios helped students connect their learning experiences “in more specific and complex ways” (p. 196) and gain certain technology skills as well. Besides, reflection is more likely to happen at a deeper level when students adopt e-portfolios in the course (Kitchenham and Chasteauneuf 2009; Oakley et al. 2014).

Strategies to address the challenges of implementing e-portfolios for developing reflective thinking

When e-portfolios are studied about their opportunities for developing reflective thinking, challenges and corresponding strategies have also been discussed in different practice experiences. Deneen et al. (2018) argued that the conception of teachers and students to assessment and technology plays a key role of e-portfolios adoption and use. Their survey of Hong Kong undergraduate students showed that positive conception and attitude to e-portfolios have an impact on students’ confidence, learning and achievement. Riedinger (2006) alerted that “the power of e-portfolios and reflection can be squandered if their purposes are not clearly defined” (p. 96) or explained. Hence, the planning of e-portfolios should be carefully conducted before implementation (Lamont 2007). Teachers and students should also be well orientated to why and how reflection will facilitate students’ learning.

Besides, scaffolding strategies for students’ learning and the use of e-portfolios are necessary and critical on supporting students’ reflective thinking while working on e-portfolios (Cheung et al. 2009). Scaffolding can encourage students’ autonomy “by gradually transitioning from teacher-directed learning to student-directed learning” (Beckers et al. 2016, p. 40). Multi-dimensional scaffolding on using e-portfolios beyond that of technology should be provided for both the teachers and students (Chau and Cheng 2010). What’s more, constructive feedback is vital to sustain and optimise learning support of e-portfolios (Yang et al. 2015). However, feedback from teachers on students’ e-portfolios may be time-consuming and tedious despite of the value of reflection (Oakley et al. 2014). Offering feedback might also increase teachers’ workload and hinder the sustainability of e-portfolios in higher education (Cheng 2012). Thus, students’ peer support on e-portfolios could be encouraged in learning activities to facilitate knowledge sharing and reflection (Cavaller 2011; Chang et al. 2018).

Research gaps and research questions

To date, research has explored about e-portfolios’ contribution on assessment (e.g. Buzzetto-More 2010; Lamont 2007; Yang et al. 2015) and reflection (e.g. Carl and Strydom 2017; Slepcevic-Zach and Stock 2018). However, how reflection occurs through working on e-portfolios and what factors facilitate and hinder reflection remain unexplored (Challis 2005). More studies are needed to examine the levels of reflection developed though e-portfolios (Orland-Barak 2005). Thus, evidence that authentically demonstrate students’ using e-portfolios will be useful to scrutinise how e-portfolios in practice in higher education facilitate and hinder students’ development of reflective thinking for lifelong learning.

This paper captures evidence from both the teacher and students in an undergraduate course at a Hong Kong university. It aims to examine how students develop their reflective thinking as they work on e-portfolios in this course, with a focus on different levels of reflection. Factors that facilitate and hinder such development are identified, and strategies are discussed to address the challenges of e-portfolio implementation. The main research question then is as follows: How do undergraduate students develop their reflective thinking as they are working on their e-portfolios? The sub-research questions are as follows:

  1. (1)

    What is the level of reflective thinking that is developed through e-portfolios among undergraduate students?

  2. (2)

    How do the facilitating factors support students’ development of reflective thinking?

  3. (3)

    What are the hindering factors that have to be addressed to support students’ development of reflective thinking?

Methods

Context

The study took place at a Hong Kong university, in a general education (GE) course compulsory for all year-four undergraduate students. The course expects students to reflect critically on and consolidate their undergraduate learning experiences, articulate beliefs and goals to describe a personal vision for their future plans and lives (General Education Office 2018). E-portfolios are integrated in this course to showcase students’ learning experiences, artefacts and reflection under selected topics that reflect the university’s Generic Intended Learning Outcomes (GILOs) and General Education Learning Outcomes (GELOs). GILOs represent expectations from the university to all graduates irrespective of the programmes they undertake, and GELOs refer to the expectations of GE courses at the university (The Education University of Hong Kong 2019). Mahara, an open source e-portfolio system, was chosen for this GE course.

The course is designed as 3-credit bearing with 39 contact hours. It includes class meetings, mass awareness briefing and seminar to introduce the course and learning outcomes, e-portfolios workshop for technical training and individual consultation as well. For accomplishing the course, each student is required to write two reflective essays and give one individual presentation on selected topic. These contents have to be uploaded to Mahara platform to formulate student’s personal e-portfolio as a final product at the end of semester. Besides, English is the medium of instruction of the course and the required language of all assessment tasks.

Participants

The participants involved one teacher and six local undergraduate students (three female and three male students) from one of the seven tutorial groups in the course. The teacher consented to participate in the study and opened her class for observation. Initially there were only female students agreeing to be participants. No male students expressed willingness until the teacher helped and explained to all students that this study would be beneficial for their learning. Finally, six students were selected on the basis of their scores of the first reflective essays. Among them, students 1 and 2 obtained the highest score, students 3, 4 and 5 gained medium scores and student 6 scored the lowest.

Data collection

Based on the course design, this study adopted a qualitative approach consisting of perspectives from both the teacher and students from the course. The data collection lasted for about 6 months from mid-2016 to early 2017. The data were collected from the sources below to provide a comprehensive understanding on how students develop their reflective thinking through working on e-portfolios. Each method and its aim are specifically elaborated in Table 2.

  • students’ e-portfolios and reflective essays;

  • interviews of the teacher and students;

  • observations of individual consultation sessions, class meetings and presentations;

  • official documents and websites from the university and programmes.

Table 2 Details of data collection methods and aims
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Before collecting data from students, gaining their trust and teacher’s support were important. With the help from the teacher, the first author of this paper introduced herself to all students and participated in class activities by sharing views and pairing up with students. During data collection, she used a few techniques to help build rapport with the students. For instance, a briefing was given before interviews to explain the research aims and ethics, interview agenda, and participants’ rights, as well as sharing some of her learning experiences. Notes were taken during interviews and observations, and all interviews were audio recorded with the consent of interviewees and transcribed. All the materials and interviews were in English, which is the second language of all participants and the researchers.

Data analysis

The data analysis mainly concentrated on students’ written assignments, the transcriptions drawing from interview recording, and field notes from the interviews and observations. Kember et al.’s (2008) scheme for coding and assessing the level of reflection in written work was adopted to code and analyse students’ written assignments. For interview and observation data, thematic analysis was used for analysing large blocks of text (Creswell 2002; Ryan and Bernard 2000). The steps of data analysis include identifying the units of analysis, coding data, sorting codes and generating themes (Foss and Waters 2007). Identifying the units of analysis was guided by the research questions (2007). In this study, the units of analysis were identified. They are as follows: to what level reflective thinking occurs, what factors facilitate reflective thinking and what factors hinder reflective thinking. After that, coding, sorting and checking codes were carried out to formulate major themes of findings. The themes were further categorised into three dimensions: course-related, student-related and university-related dimensions.

In this study, two in-depth interviews with each student allowing a proper time gap in between enabled researchers to transcribe the first interview in time. This also allowed researchers to seek clarification and dig deeply in the second interviews. Transcribing in time particularly helped keep the analysis centred on the data and treat the data in a comprehensive manner for analysis. In order to validate the findings, perspectives from the teacher and students were further compared and contrasted with the field notes. Official documents and websites of the university and programmes were also checked. Therefore, the data eventually generated the knowledge from multiple perspectives and triangulated the findings so as to vividly portray students’ development of reflective thinking and the factors facilitate and hinder such development.

Findings and discussion

Students’ reflective thinking developed through working on e-portfolios

Students in this study created their e-portfolios under the topic dream. Through working on e-portfolios, they elaborated experiences with challenges and difficulties previously encountered. By going through these experiences, they re-evaluated them and realised that how these experiences changed their previous understanding and developed their skills, and then figured out plans to fulfil their dreams. From the analysis of reflective essays and reflective entries on their e-portfolios, students demonstrated that they went through Boud et al.’s (1985) reflective processes and developed different levels of reflective thinking.

Students were found that they considered reflective thinking as knowing about themselves, gaining new thoughts from the courses or activities they participated in, then to “help me learn from the mistakes, prepare for and improve my future” (student 2). In the two interviews, students were asked whether they knew why they were using e-portfolios in the course. They were also asked what they knew about reflective thinking or reflection. However, in the first interviews, students 4 and 5 had no idea about reflection or considered it as a part of course work. In presentations, students showed that they had sought improvement and/or had cleared previous misconceptions in daily life or in their study. However, students 4 and 5 just presented the work they had finished without demonstrating much reflection or new understanding. When it came to the second interviews after they finished all the assessment tasks, students 4 and 5 realized that reflective thinking was looking back at their past rather than merely a part of course work. Furthermore, all students in this study specifically expressed positive thoughts that e-portfolios help them on developing reflective thinking in the course. They regarded e-portfolios as platforms to document and organise reflection in a clearer way. By working on e-portfolios, they not only achieved the course learning outcomes but also had a deeper understanding of themselves and a clearer image of their future.

Students had gone through the reflective processes suggested by Boud et al. (1985) when working on their e-portfolios. They returned to previous experiences that happened during undergraduate study in or outside of the university, such as learning with professors at the university, volunteer teaching in rural area, service trip for unprivileged people and collaborating with foreign organisation. They also described and reflected on difficulties they met in the science experiment, criticism received in performance or financial challenges they had. While revisiting these experiences, students also revealed their feelings. Boud et al. (1985) emphasised the importance of experienced emotions in the process of reflective learning, i.e. that students might experience doubt and confusion before finally reaching a decision. Students described experiences of frustration and self-doubt, struggle between different teaching philosophies, losing confidence and even temperately giving up their dreams. With support from professors, family or friends, they realised and documented that these experiences had taught them the difficulties outside of the university, enhanced some of their skills, and inspired them for future in academia, education or music industry. These new understandings or insights are considered as outcomes from their reflective process.

Apart from the evidence of reflection shown above, students’ levels of reflection have been revealed. It is found that students in this study have achieved different levels of reflection. They attained either critical reflection or reflection. The results from the analysis of the reflective essays and e-portfolios are consistent with the assessment marking from the teacher. These are summarized in Table 3.

Table 3 Students’ level of reflective thinking
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At the top level of reflective thinking—critical reflection, students 1 and 2 showed in their works that their previously held beliefs had changed as a result of re-evaluating their previous experiences, knowledge and skills. Student 3 clearly showed her progress from reflection (1st essay) at the beginning of semester to critical reflection (2nd essay) at the end of semester. Student 3′s study of pedagogy-related courses at the university helped her understand the challenges science teachers might face in Hong Kong schools, which eventually changed her perspective about her secondary five biology teachers whom she had previously blamed for discouraging her enthusiasm and interest in her favourite subject. Students 4, 5 and 6 just demonstrated in their works that they could apply general theories in practical situations based on the previous experiences. However, due to that, students 4, 5 and 6 demonstrated little change of their perception during the reflective process, thus reached the second top level of reflective thinking—reflection. Students 4, 5 and 6 could not show the top level of reflective thinking in their written works since they were not able to show any of their previously held beliefs had changed as a result of their experiences, knowledge and skills gained in undergraduate years. “Learning is all about change, and change drives learning” (London 2011, p. 1). Hence, students in this study who demonstrated higher level of reflection might be more likely to see their gaps of study and self-regulate their learning throughout their lives.

It is noticed that different levels of reflection in this study might vary partly due to students’ gender and the programmes they enrolled. All reflective essays and reflective entries on e-portfolios at critical reflection level were written by all the three female students. The gender dimension echoes the study of Dyment and O’Connell (2011) that women might be more open on writing reflective journal. Moreover, different programmes with different designs and learning outcomes might impact the students’ development of reflective thinking. Some programmes (e.g. Bachelor of Education in English Language) might build up students’ English proficiency that can be the one of the advantages of working on e-portfolios.

Facilitating factors that support students’ development of reflective thinking

In this study, facilitating factors that support students’ development of reflective thinking are categorised under three dimensions, i.e. course-related, student-related and university-related dimensions. In the course-related dimension, teacher’s support and feedback, peer support and e-portfolios topic are vital on students’ development of reflective thinking through e-portfolios.

The teacher is a pivotal guide or learning facilitator in engaging students to develop reflection, rather than merely dispensing knowledge. First, teacher's understanding of reflection and e-portfolios matters. When the teacher realises the importance of reflection to lifelong learning, he or she will be more likely to align the class activities to students’ development of reflective thinking through e-portfolios. At the first class meeting, the teacher actively involved students in discussion about learning outcomes of the course and e-portfolios, course requirement and assessment tasks. She emphasised the importance of reflection to enable students to better understand the rationale of taking this course from the very beginning. Throughout class meetings, the teacher kept helping students understand the learning outcomes. She adopted teaching and learning strategies to engage the students in reflective thinking. The strategies included pairing up students to discuss e-portfolio topic, encouraging them to brainstorm idea so as to facilitate their critical reflection, asking thought-provoking questions to elicit their thoughts. She also invited the first author of this paper to share her personal learning experiences and pair up with students for discussion. During individual consultation sessions, the teacher not only thoroughly advised students on different assessment tasks but also offered suggestions on specific improvement including topics, artefacts and content of e-portfolios.

The role of teacher as a mean of facilitating reflection is well captured in the literature. In Hourani’s (2013) study, the students found the written and oral feedback from the teachers were beneficial to their reflection. Dyment and O’Connel (2011) in their review reported that supervisor’s feedback influence students’ level of reflection. However, teacher’s support on e-portfolios might require his or her extra time for course preparation, delivery and providing feedback. On one hand, teacher might have less time and willingness to provide timely feedback for students’ work, given teaching staff’s heavy workload in many faculties (Yang et al. 2015). On the other hand, some of them might not be confident in IT skills or be inexperienced on e-portfolio platforms (Peacock et al 2010). Literature has suggested that scaffolding can be used to improve the quality of students’ reflection (Beckers et al. 2016; Chau and Cheng 2010; Cheung et al. 2009). Scaffolding toolkits would be of value. They can include guiding questions for students’ writing reflective essays, assessment rubrics for marking, e-portfolio template, step guides and checklist for building e-portfolios. By means of scaffolding toolkits, students’ self-regulation and peer support on e-portfolios may be facilitated and enhanced. Teachers’ workload on offering support can also be alleviated to some extent.

Besides, peer interaction and feedback are found to help students learn and reflect in a deeper level through e-portfolios. This finding is coherent with previous research (see Beckers et al. 2016; Cavaller 2011; Chang et al. 2018). Comments from classmates might inspire competition among students for writing better reflective entries on e-portfolios. Students in this study were prone to accept the feedback from those who studied the same programme or shared the same experience. Meanwhile, they also welcomed criticisms because always-positive comments seemed inauthentic. Hence, the autonomy of students should be respected when working on their e-portfolios. This will build the mutual trust between students and teacher, provide students a good environment to self-regulate their learning and then ultimately support their reflective thinking. For those students who have reached the highest level of reflection (students 1, 2 and 3), being interested in the given e-portfolio topic and previous experiences of writing reflective essays also facilitated their deeper reflection.

In the student-related dimension, technical issues, socio-economic status, privacy and security are found to facilitate students’ development of reflective thinking. Technical issues are related to technology competency and the function of e-portfolio platform. Students with better technology competency felt more confident on e-portfolios, spent more time on the contents of reflective entries and thus could reflect in a deeper level. Accordingly, technology competency might be related to students’ socio-economic status. Those who own personal laptops and/or smartphones could work on e-portfolios whenever thoughts occurred to them. Besides, a private and secured setting of e-portfolio platform was appreciated by the students who attained the highest level of reflection in this study. Owning the decision of granting access right made them feel comfortable to write and share authentic personal reflection on e-portfolios.

In the university-related dimension, both the teacher and students appreciated the training workshops on e-portfolios organised by the university. Institutional technical capacity building contributes noticeably to developing students’ reflective thinking on e-portfolios. To address technical issues in learning and teaching, capacity building should be provided systematically and sustainably to both the teachers and students, for instance, introduction at the beginning of semester, advanced workshop at mid-term and sharing seminar at the end of semester. Capacity building could also come from sharing of senior students and/or teachers. Sharing of predecessors might enhance students’ understanding and readiness for e-portfolios. Also, students who lack confidence on e-portfolios or face emotional issues might find that some of their frustrations are accepted and considered normal. They might be more likely to open themselves up to teachers and peers and thereby develop and deepen their reflective thinking. Sharing can also enable teachers to understand their role of learning facilitator for students on writing reflective essays and working on e-portfolios.

Hindering factors that need to be addressed to support students’ development of reflective thinking

Apart from facilitating factors, factors that hinder students’ reflective thinking are identified in this study from two dimensions: course-related and student-related dimensions.

In the course-related dimension, language challenge and students’ readiness for reflection may hinder students’ reflective thinking. In the interviews, both the teacher and students were asked whether students faced any challenge to write their reflective entries in English. Both the teacher and students preferred students’ native language Chinese than English on writing reflective essays and working on e-portfolios. Difficulty in translating words hinders students’ articulation and deeper reflective thinking on e-portfolios. This finding echoes students’ frustration of using English instead of Arabic for their e-portfolios in Abu Dhabi (Hourani 2013). At the same time, students’ readiness for reflection on e-portfolios might to some extent be affected by the factors like structure and marking rules of the course, e-portfolio topic and their fields of study. Some students in the class struggled to link e-portfolios with their undergraduate studies. This challenge might require higher-order thinking skills and more scaffolding supports because students must re-evaluate their experiences and confront both their strengths and limitations before establishing the linkage with deeper reflection (Hourani 2013).

In the student-related dimension, technical issues, emotional issues, socio-cultural context and practice, and socio-economic status could hinder students’ reflective thinking.

In the interviews, students were asked how they would describe the technical skills that make a difference in dealing with e-portfolios. On technical issues, some students in the class who lack of technology competency faced frustration on using-portfolio platform instead of reflecting on their experiences. Emotionally, students might feel reluctant or ashamed to recall their unsuccessful or stressful learning experiences. This to some extent affected their deeper reflection to achieve the highest level of reflective thinking. As engaging in personal development, reflection can be an uncomfortable, even discouraging experience (Riedinger 2006). Additionally, materialistic and competitive culture in Hong Kong, as well as rote memorization in the education system, might also indirectly impact the students’ deeper reflection on their past learning experiences and future dreams.

Overall, it is shown that support from teachers and peers, technology competency, and training from the university are common facilitating factors to support students’ development of reflective thinking. Students who reached critical reflection showed more interest in e-portfolio topic, enjoyed better socio-economic status and paid heed to personal privacy. At the same time, language challenge, readiness for reflection, technology competency, socio-cultural context and practice are considered as reflection-hindered factors. Students who attained reflection also reported their challenges from emotional issues and socio-economic status. For summarising this section, both facilitating and hindering factors are indicated under three categories (i.e. course-related, student-related and university-related dimensions) as shown in Table 4.

Table 4 Facilitating and hindering factors affecting students’ development of reflective thinking through e-portfolios
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Conclusion

This paper has analysed multiple types of data attained from both the teacher and students in an e-portfolio-embedded undergraduate course at a Hong Kong university. The findings reveal that e-portfolios provide opportunities for students’ development of reflective thinking and show evidence that students developed the two top levels of reflection through e-portfolios. As a result of reflection on experiences and knowledge gained during undergraduate study through e-portfolios, students might be prone to critically analyse the issues and situation that they will be facing, before formulating conclusion or opinion. Students who reached the highest level of reflection (critical reflection) showed that their previously beliefs had changed. Student who reached the second highest level of reflection (reflection) showed that they could apply various general theories when facing challenges. Hence, we argue that students attain higher levels of reflection could tend to see the gap between the past and now, consider alternatives and seize the opportunities to make change. These changes will drive learning, occurs in turns throughout students’ lives (London 2011), but will be most useful when they learn how to learn. Hence, students who developed higher levels of reflective thinking might be more likely to self-regulate their learning throughout their lives and achieve lifelong learning.

What’s more, factors that facilitate and hinder reflection identified in this study contribute to future research about e-portfolios practices from course-related, student-related and university-related dimensions. For those hindering factors to be addressed for supporting students’ development of reflective thinking, strategies discussed are meaningful and practical for future practices. They are emphasising the role of teacher as a learning facilitator and guide, building scaffolding toolkits for supporting both the students and teachers, and providing sustained capacity building on reflection writing and building e-portfolios.

However, in this study, group variations of students and possible associated factors might be missing due to the fact that only one group of students and teacher from the course participated in this study. Students from various cultural backgrounds were also missing because all students in this study are from Hong Kong. Future study with bigger sample size and/or in cross-cultural settings is valuable to see how students from different cultural backgrounds develop their reflective thinking through e-portfolios. Also, it is meaningful to investigate how scaffolding support students’ development of reflective thinking through e-portfolios for lifelong learning.