A study hypothesized that pedagogical beliefs, as well as method course experience, would be important and related influences on how preservice teachers used portfolios. During a year-long study, 20 elementary education majors were followed as they moved through methods courses into student teaching and their first year as classroom teachers. Informal surveys about portfolios and a motivational survey for teachers were completed by the subjects early in the study and at 2 to 3 months after the completion of student teaching. Use of portfolios in teaching methods courses seemed to elicit the development of professional portfolios students completed of their own work, but it did not appear to influence these student teachers to ask their students for portfolios, a behavior that teacher educators thought they were modeling. Findings suggest that teacher educators must help preservice teachers make explicit links among their coursework, their clinical experiences, and their pedagogical beliefs to build effective understanding and use of portfolios. Students should be asked to reflect on the types and uses of portfolios. The plans these student teachers made for using portfolios were based on what they observed in their clinical settings, but in these settings they were not seeing much portfolio use. An appendix presents some sample survey items. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 35 references.) (SLD)