Helping University Students Succeed at Employment Interviews: The Role of Self-Reflection in e-Portfolios

Abstract

In the context of a Transition to Work course for fourth-year psychology majors, we had students use an e-portfolio to self-reflect on the learning experiences they deemed most significant during their degree. Such significant learning experiences can be drawn upon when answering behavioral job interview questions. We examined whether students would show improvement in mock behavioral interview performance over time, and whether any potential improvement was related to performance on self-reflective course assignments. Students indicated that the majority of their significant learning experiences had taken place outside of the classroom (e.g., paid and unpaid work, extracurricular activities). Across the duration of the course, students improved on all metrics of interview performance, and final interview performance was predicted by student grades on a self reflective e-portfolio, but not other course assignments.