Continuous reflection using an e-portfolio improves students' leadership behaviour

Knowledge, skills, and abilities in communication and project management and the application of these basics to facilitate teamwork and leadership are necessary for both professionals and students of higher education in all science and engineering fields. Leadership education has usually been limited to simple acquisition of knowledge in a classroom-setting, and a major issue has emerged concerning transfer of classroom-acquired knowledge into real-life practice. Leadership education has been conducted for ten years for first-year Master's students at the Graduate School of Engineering and Science at the Shibaura Institute of Technology. The program has five modules: knowledge, training by simulation, real action, reflection, and assessment. Because students have limited opportunities to learn from real leaders and demonstrate leadership behaviours, we utilised a simulator to enhance students' experiences in a safe environment by having them review their own behaviour with an e-portfolio. Students are likely to be less hesitant to take leadership initiatives after repeated simulations. The purpose of this study was to positively change leadership behaviour of students by allowing them to practise reflection with the e-portfolio. The students followed prompts concerning reflection on their behaviour in the e-portfolio, during a seven-week period. To verify the educational outcomes of learning, questionnaire surveys were conducted on 'changes in interpretation of leadership concepts,' 'changes in leadership behaviour through continuous recording in the e-portfolio,' and 'leadership self-efficacy.' Results highlighted the potential of continuous reflection using the e-portfolio for positive changes in learners' leadership behaviour.