The Portfolio as a Tool for Mentoring in Nursing Students: A Scoping Review

BACKGROUND: One of the processes leading to education and evaluation promotion in nursing is mentoring. Moreover, using a portfolio leads to promotion of the mentoring process. Due to the importance of mentoring in nursing, its strengthening by the portfolio, the weakness of mentoring in nursing, and the lack of widespread use of portfolio in nursing education, the aim of this study was to determine portfolio content, which can help the mentoring performance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present scoping review study was conducted in 2017. Articles were searched using the keywords portfolio, mentoring, nursing education, logbook, teaching, learning, nursing, education, and evaluation. The search was conducted in SID, IranMedex, IranDoc, Magiran, PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect databases. Studies published in Persian and English from 1997 to 2017 were reviewed. The studies were extracted based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RESULTS: Of the 1070 articles searched, 6 were extracted for the final assessment. The results indicated that a portfolio consists of a title page, content list, introduction, record of experience, mentor's feedback and comments, self-evaluation, and educational activities. Furthermore, nursing process is required to help conduct mentoring among nursing students. CONCLUSIONS: Recording experiences, feedback, etc., in the portfolios of nursing students can be helpful in conducting mentoring for student's education. It is suggested that educational managers perform mentoring in educational environments using the contents suggested in this study.