Eportfolios for accreditation? Prevalence, institutional characteristics, and perceptions at United States regionally accredited institutions

Little is known about the prevalence of institution-level eportfolios for supporting regional accreditation or reaffirmation at higher education institutions across the United States. A literature review uncovered no data identifying the relative proportions of institution-level electronic portfolio implementation based upon the regional accreditor of the institution. Additionally, characteristics (such as Basic Carnegie Classification) of institutions that implement eportfolios for accreditation were unexplored, as were the perceptions held by institutions' accreditation liaison officers (ALOs).;Building upon the existing literature, the researcher developed a definition of institution-level eportfolios, then used a quasi-experimental design and a stratified random sampling probability method to sample 100 ALOs from each of the six regional accreditation agencies (N = 600). Data gathered by a Web-based survey questionnaire were explored using SAS and Excel to answer questions of prevalence, institutional characteristics, and perceptions of ALOs. The researcher hypothesized no difference in prevalence among the six regional accreditation agencies.;Response rates were not sufficient to generalize the findings to the population of regionally accredited U. S. higher education institutions. Within these limitations, the researcher is 95% confident that the true proportion of institutions that implement institution-level eportfolios for the purpose of accreditation is between .245 and .375 (n = 193) and concludes that support for eportfolios in the literature is not carried over into practice. Reasons for this result are discussed; a possible cause is unclear messaging from regional accreditors. Only ALOs in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges reported a majority of their institutions implemented institution-level eportfolios: 55% versus 45%. To test the study's hypothesis, a difference in multiple proportions test was performed. This yielded a chi-squared test statistic, chi2 = 7.71 with 5 degrees of freedom, with a p-value of 0.173. At a 5% significance level, the researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis; thus, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest a difference in the proportion of institution-level eportfolio implementation among the six regional accrediting agencies.;This study owes much to previously published research; however, it is unique in its population, sample, and method.