Master’s competence-based portfolio content as a means of academic writing assessment

Higher education in Ukraine is facing new challenges brought about by the reform processes that affect its content and structure. The reduction of contact hours has increased both the volume of students' independent work and their responsibility for academic success. Under these conditions, the portfolio becomes one of the most efficient means of teaching and assessing students' academic performance as it consists of a collection of syllabus-based writing tasks demonstrating the learner's gradual achievements during the course. Portfolios are profitable both for teachers and learners. Thanks to the portfolio, all the students are equally involved into the learning process; they receive more individual attention on the part of the teacher, and to the end of the course, get patterns of several academic papers, such as an essay, abstract, annotative bibliography, and presentation. The portfolios enable the teacher to follow the students' achievements and the process of forming academic writing competences, and if it is necessary, to reinforce their development. Moreover, portfolios provide a perfect tool for valid, multifaceted, and sustainable students' assessment. The system of syllabus-based learning tasks aligned to six categories of Bloom's taxonomy forms the content of the competence-based portfolio. The proposed arrangement of academic writing assignments accounts for successful solving of the course objectives. The introduction of portfolios into the learning process is rather advantageous for other academic courses because most generic and subject-specific competences, formed within the Academic Writing course, are transferable and can be applied to other disciplines. The learners can successfully use the absorbed knowledge of scientific writing for creating academic papers in other courses.