AbstractTo date, little empirical qualitative research has examined students’ perspectives on faculties’ pedagogical strategies in research methods classes in higher educa-tion institutions and how these affect their learning. This case study examined how a newly implemented project-based learning system (PjBL) was experienced by the students and how their views on the system evolved over time. The case study col-lected data from students through qualitative interviews and content-analyzed the transcriptions. The findings show that the students valued the switch from traditional teacher-centered teaching to project-based learning and that this kind of learning system has strong potential to attract students’ interest and to engage them more actively and genuinely in the learning process. The study also identified negative student experiences with PjBL, especially increased workload and project-related anxiety. However, the study found that even the more reluctant students can eventu-ally find the model attractive and valuable, as they become accustomed and attracted to it over time. The paper discusses the implications of the findings for the pedagogy of research methods in higher education.
Keywords Project-based learning · Active learning · Inquiry-based learning · Research methods pedagogy · Higher education students
Higher education students are known to often have a negative experience with learn-ing research methods (Clark and Foster 2017; Earley 2014; Hosein and Rao 2017; Markle 2017). One of the sources of these difficulties is the way these methods are taught (Markle 2017). Despite the magnitude of the problem, this issue has not been
at the center of the concerns of most professors and students (Kilburn et al. 2014; McKinney 2018).
This paper describes a case study of how the introduction of a new pedagogical approach in a social research methods course at a public university was implemented and how the students, who were used mostly to teacher-centered methods, experi-enced and reacted to the new learning system. In the article, I begin by reviewing the literature on the teaching and learning of research methods in higher education, specifically at the undergraduate level. I highlight, in particular, the literature on the development and implementation of authentic research projects conducted by small groups of students. Next, I describe the pedagogical system and the context in which the present study was conducted. Subsequently, I describe the research methodol-ogy used in the case study. This is followed by a presentation and discussion of the results. I conclude the article with a general reflection on the pedagogical experience and the implications of the case study for educational practices in higher education, especially in social research methods courses.
Literature review
Research has found considerable qualitative variations in the type of teaching that is performed in universities (Stes and Van Petegem 2014). Studies in this area con-ducted by Trigwell et al. (1994) and Trigwell et al. (1999) identified two main types of pedagogy used by university teachers: an ‘information transmission and teacher-focused’ approach, and a ‘conceptual change and student-focused’ approach. While in the former ‘the focus is on what the teacher does and on the way the teacher understands the concepts’, in the latter ‘the focus is on what the students do and, on the students’ understanding and its relation to the teachers’ understanding’ (Prosser and Trigwell 2014, p. 5). Trigwell and Prosser’s (2004) research in large first-year university classes showed that, in these classes, the information transmission and teacher-focused approach to teaching was positively associated with students’ sur-face approaches to learning and negatively correlated with deeper approaches to learning course contents.
The limitations of the lecture method and the relative advantages of alternative pedagogical approaches have been highlighted by many authors (e.g., Bartholomay 2018; Clark and Foster 2017; Coll-Serrano et al. 2018; Eglitis et al. 2016; Ilter 2014; Larmer 2015; Lazonder and Harmsen 2016; Pedaste et al. 2015; Wijnen et al. 2017). These analysts criticize the one-way flow of information from lecturer to student and its production of low levels of student engagement in lecture-based teaching sys-tems, manifested in poor attendance or lack of attention during class (Huggins and Stamatel 2015; Sagy et al. 2019).
To avoid this problem, one alternative presented in the literature is the adop-tion of an active, student-centered pedagogical methodology (e.g., Davidson et al. 2014; Gunn 2017; Ryan et al. 2014; Starkey 2019). Active learning usually involves engaging students in practical or problem-based tasks through which they practice, experiment, discuss and reflect on course topics (Kilburn et al. 2014; Masika and Jones 2016). In the social sciences, research has shown that this type of learning
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has strong potential to generate clear connections between sociological inquiries and students’ lived experiences (Eglitis et al. 2016), to stimulate students’ interest in social research (Markle 2017) and to boost their sociological imagination (Bartholo-may 2018).
One particularly promising form of active learning is inquiry-based learning (Clark and Foster 2017), which involves students in generating questions and col-lecting, analyzing and interpreting data to address those questions (Bell et al. 2010). In this learning system, students develop the ability to learn about topics through self-directed investigations. By acting as scientists, they not only learn content, but also the very process of scientific work (Lazonder and Harmsen 2016).
Inquiry-based learning can take many forms (Clark and Foster 2017). In this arti-cle, I highlight one particular form: project-based learning (PjBL) (Kokotsaki et al. 2016), especially its collaborative learning format. PjBL is a teaching and learn-ing method which ‘engages students in complex, real-world tasks that result in a product or presentation to an audience, enabling them to acquire knowledge and life-enhancing skills’ (Chen and Yang 2019, p. 2). The core of this method is the development of a project. Working on the project provides students with hands-on opportunities to engage with key concepts and techniques of their course, work in teams, discuss their progress with peers and present their work to a broader audi-ence (Johnson et al. 2013). The Buck Institute of Education (2020) has identified seven essential elements of “gold standard” PBL: a challenging problem or question that encourages students to formulate questions and problems in innovative ways; sustained inquiry over a significant period of time; authenticity, that is, a meaning-ful connection between the project and a real-life context; the exercise of student voice and choice in key aspects of the project; reflection on the work done and the methods used; critique and revision through regular evaluation and feedback; and public product, the presentation of the project’s product to an audience outside the classroom.
Group research projects have sometimes been used as a student-centered edu-cational model in the teaching of social research methods (Earley 2014; Monson 2017). The value of student experience with actual research projects was empha-sized by Bourdieu (1992) and has inspired social research methods teachers to ‘place real research experience at the center of students’ learning and design courses around an array of research endeavors and practical experiences similar to those they might encounter in real research projects’ (Kilburn et al. 2014, p. 200). Several advocates of active learning approaches argue that students should experience the complete research process as much as possible, rather than small, occasional bits of it (Bartholomay 2018; Craney et al. 2011; Johnson et al. 2013; Monson 2017; Schutt et al. 1984).
As described above, a key quality of long-duration, student-led group research projects is authenticity, which describes ‘the ability to show students that what they are doing is a “real” piece of research rather than something dreamed up to let stu-dents practice on something that does not matter’ (Page 2015, pp. 345–346). Stu-dents invest more in projects that are meaningful for them.
The public nature of product presentation is a key aspect of this type of learn-ing. Involving students in the completion of an entire research project ultimately
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entails having them work on the dissemination of their findings, in the final phase of the project, rather than just complete and deliver a final report (Boyer Commission 1998; Larmer and Mergendoller 2015; Walkington 2015). However, when compared to the other research stages, the dissemination phase is generally underplayed in teachers’ planning of their students’ project work (Kneale and Edwards-Jones 2016; Spronken-Smith et al. 2013). This has led to calls for creating more opportunities for disseminating undergraduate research and, in some locations, to the organization of undergraduate conferences where students have the opportunity to present their work to a wider audience (e.g., Hersh, Hiro, and Asarnow 2011; Swift et al. 2012; Walkington 2015). Students’ experience of the dissemination of research findings in a conference may help them develop and improve several academic and profes-sional skills, such as their academic writing, their ability to focus on project require-ments and their personal investment in the project (Camacho et al. 2017; Kneale and Edwards-Jones 2016; Little 2020).
All of the above presents significant challenges to both university teachers and students who are used to working in a more traditional, teacher-centered, infor-mation transmission educational model (Bergmark and Westman 2018; Little and McMillan 2016). At first some students may find it difficult to operate as self-dis-ciplined learners, to work with others in teams and to take their peers’ views into consideration (Holmes and Hwang 2016). Some research studies have shown that students are eventually able to adjust and figure out how to operate in a new learning system and that their initial anxiety can be alleviated, but this may take time (Aslan and Reigeluth 2016; Huggins and Stamatel 2015; Lombard and Kloppers 2015). However, this issue is relatively under-researched, especially in higher education. As some authors have pointed out (e.g., Bartholomay 2018; Earley 2014), in the field of research on the learning of research methods there is a considerable lack of stud-ies on students’ experiences of project-based innovations. In this respect, there is wide room for greater use of qualitative methods that illuminate students’ perspec-tives on how teachers’ pedagogical options affect their learning (McKinney 2018). This paper seeks to contribute to this field of research by presenting and discussing findings based on a reflective case study of project-based pedagogical practice in a sociology department where the majority of faculty mainly embraced the traditional, teacher-centered lecture style of teaching. In the paper, I examine student testimo-nies to account for the way they experienced the introduction of a PjBL learning system in their research methods classes and how their perspectives on the system evolved over time.
Context of the study and description of the pedagogical system
The present case study was conducted in a social research methods class in the department of Sociology of a Portuguese public higher education institution, in the academic year of 2017–2018. The one-semester long research methods course enrolled 34 Sociology students and 34 Social Work undergraduates and was part of the second year of training in students’ three-year bachelors’ degrees. The train-ing in research methods included four hours of classes per week during a total of
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15 weeks. Students from both degrees integrated a common class, totaling 68 stu-dents. The main aim of the course was to provide students with a comprehensive, theoretical and practical foundation for conducting independent social research studies. Students who had enrolled in the course before 2017–2018 had been taught mostly in a traditional, lecture-based way. In the other courses that the 2017–2018 class attended, the lecture mode also predominated.
In 2017–2018, the instructor (the author of the present article, an experienced professor, newly assigned to the class, who had extensive experience of teaching with active learning methods in other higher education programs) structured stu-dents’ work in a new way, by implementing a collaborative, student-centered, pro-ject-based learning approach. Within this framework, the course was organized into several stages that closely followed a real-world social research process, from the initial formulation of a research problem to the final presentation of results to a pub-lic audience. In the first half of the semester, the assignment for the students enrolled in the course was the development of an actual quantitative survey. In order to carry out this project, the students were required to form groups, define a research prob-lem, perform a small literature review on the topic, generate research objectives and questions, design a questionnaire, collect data, analyze the data, write a final report and present a paper in a student research conference. As time was short (a total of eight weeks to perform all of these tasks), some pre-arranged materials were made available to help the students save time.
In the first class, the students were asked to form groups of four to five members. Twelve groups were formed. Then they were given a list of seven possible research topics from which they could choose. Each topic involved reading and discussing two specific journal articles. To ensure diversity of topics in the class, a maximum of three groups was allowed to work on each topic.
In the following class, the groups started working on their projects. Over a period of three weeks, each group was required to perform the following tasks: write a small literature review (three to five pages) based on two articles provided by the instructor, define a research problem and generate two or three research questions, operationalize the variables and develop a short questionnaire for the study. All of this had to be delivered to the instructor, in written form, by the end of the sev-enth class. Throughout this first period, the instructor systematically engaged with the groups, both in-class and by email communication, to help them develop the materials and achieve their goals. After the materials produced by the groups were delivered, the instructor provided detailed feedback to each group on what it had achieved and what needed to be improved. Throughout the whole period, the groups received instructor feedback and support, both in the classroom and by electronic communication.
Then the projects progressed into a new stage. Based on the groups’ different proposed questionnaires, one single, improved questionnaire was constructed for the whole class, containing questions pertaining to each of the topics chosen by the groups. Then the instructor worked with the class on defining a population for the study. This involved a discussion of concepts related to research populations and sampling. Subsequently, in order to save time, the class decided to survey the whole undergraduate student population of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, in
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which their department was located, comprising nine bachelors’ programs with a total of 714 students. The data collection process was organized so that each stu-dent group collected data from a specific set of classes. Faculty and students in the institution were invited to cooperate in the project and, as all agreed to participate, student teams went to collect data in their classrooms. Data collection was carried out throughout one week, corresponding to two 2-h class slots.
After data collection, each group inserted their data into an SPSS file and the twelve files were merged into a single file. As soon as this was done, the groups started working on the analysis and writing up of their findings. Two weeks later, they were required to submit a proposal for a paper presentation, with the main find-ings of their project, in an international student research conference. The instructor worked with the groups on the abstracts for their submissions, which were accepted for presentation. The conference took place on mid-April, 2018 (about half-way through the semester). Each group made a 10-min presentation of their work and responded to audience questions and suggestions. Students’ final versions of their project reports were delivered on the last week of April.
The class was then presented with a new challenge: it could either go into lecture-mode for the remaining of the semester (seven weeks, totaling 14 two-hour classes) or move the projects into a qualitative phase, which would involve conducting six interviews per group, transcribing and content-analyzing the material and handing in a new, improved version of the final report. The class took a vote and more than two-thirds chose to move the project into a qualitative phase. With the help of the instructor, the class then constructed a stratified sample for the qualitative study. Again, each group collected data on a specific set of classes. In total, 72 interviews were conducted by the students. Subsequently, the instructor worked with the class on how to transcribe and perform a content analysis of the transcriptions. Every group shared their transcriptions with the whole class, so that each group had a sig-nificant amount of qualitative material to work on. The groups were allowed to work on specific parts of this material. The final report for the qualitative stage of the pro-ject was delivered at the end of the semester.
The pedagogical structure of the course included all essential seven project design elements of Gold Standard PBL, as described by the Buck Institute of Educa-tion (2020):
A challenging problem or question
The projects were framed by research questions that challenged the students to go beyond common-sense ways of thinking about social problems.
Sustained inquiry
Throughout the entire semester, students engaged in a systematic and prolonged pro-cess of questioning, finding knowledge and applying newly learned methodological concepts.
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Authenticity
The projects explored real-world circumstances and discussed issues connected to students’ personal experiences, problems and interests. Examples of issues included privacy in students’ Facebook communication, academic cheating in higher educa-tion and students’ modes and levels of civic engagement, among others.
Student voice and choice
Students were able to make a variety of choices about the project, including their research theme, the projects goals and the research questions, as well how the work groups operated internally and what they created. They also participated in signifi-cant decisions on the structure and scheduling of learning activities, including the option to exit the project-based learning process altogether.
Reflection
Students and instructor jointly addressed and commented on the progress of their project activities, the quality of their work, the difficulties encountered and the approaches to overcome them.
Critique and revision
Students regularly offered and received feedback, both in-class and online, on how to build and enhance their projects. The instructor regularly reviewed the different tasks produced by the project groups during the semester, such as literature reviews, research objetives, questionnaire contents and data analysis, and the results of this evaluation were communicated and discussed with the groups, with a positive emphasis on strengths and areas that needed improvement.
Public product
Students made their project work public by sharing it and debating it with audiences outside the classroom, in a student research conference open to the whole institution and to the community, which included participants from other countries.
Methods
Participants
The participants in the case study are 24 research methods students who participated in the projects described above. The participants were recruited from the twelve groups that were formed in the course. In each group, two students were recruited: the spokesperson and an additional member. The study included all spokespersons
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from all groups, as well as 12 additional participants from each program (Sociology and Social Work). The students participated on a voluntary basis. An informed con-sent protocol was signed with each. Table 1 provides details on the sample’s struc-ture and composition.
Instrument and data collection
Qualitative data were gathered through individual semi-structured interviews with the 24 participants. The interview schedule was developed with reference to relevant literature on PjBL (reviewed above) and features of the project work that the students carried out. Interviewees shared their experiences and insights on the pedagogical framework implemented in their classes. The interviews also collected data on their perceived readiness levels for conducting a social research study compared to a lec-ture-based method, and on their levels of motivation to attend classes based on pro-ject-based approaches versus lecture-based ones. With respect to these latter issues, the study intended to record both types of perceptions on Likert type 7-point scales,
Table 1 Participants in the study Group Code Sex Age Degree Spokesperson
1 E1 M > 21 Social work ✓E6 M 19–21 Sociology
2 E2 F 19–21 Sociology ✓E24 F 19–21 Social work
3 E4 F 19–21 Sociology ✓E3 F 19–21 Sociology
4 E8 F 19–21 Sociology ✓E5 F 19–21 Social work
5 E7 F 19–21 Social work ✓E9 F 19–21 Sociology
6 E10 F 19–21 Social work ✓E23 M 19–21 Sociology
7 E11 F 19–21 Sociology ✓E18 F 19–21 Social work
8 E13 F > 21 Sociology ✓E12 F 19–21 Social work
9 E14 F 19–21 Social work ✓E15 F 19–21 Sociology
10 E17 F 19–21 Social work ✓E16 F > 21 Sociology
11 E19 F 19–21 Social workE20 M 19–21 Sociology
12 E22 F > 21 Sociology ✓E21 F 19–21 Social work
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during the interviews. Many interviewees, however, frequently found it difficult to indicate accurate numbers on the scale and instead preferred to provide more gen-eral responses that applied to total magnitudes rather than exact amounts, especially when comparing project-based to lecture-based learning. Therefore, the perceived readiness and motivational level data shown in Table 3 do not always correspond to exact figures and should be used mainly for general comparative purposes. All inter-views were digitally recorded and fully transcribed. Transcripts ranged in length from 3326 to 9652 words, with an average length of 5618 words per transcript.
Data collection was carried out after the end of the semester, when all exams had already been taken and all students knew their final grades. This ensured that stu-dents’ interview testimonies were not constrained by fears that stating their honest points of view on the new pedagogical system might damage their grades. The inter-views were conducted in the researcher’s office and lasted between 27 and 58 min.
Analysis
To analyze the interview data, a coding framework was developed inductively, based on the principles of grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1998). A sample of tran-scripts was read several times and an open coding process of the material identified key ideas that emerged from the data. This process generated a set categories and subcategories. Each of these was assigned a numeric code and then all transcripts were mined for text segments (usually, phrases or parts of phrases, sometimes whole paragraphs) that fit into each code. Code files were organized, each including all rel-evant content for its specific code. Table 2 provides information on the final system of categories and subcategories that emerged from the content analysis.
In order to determine the reliability of this system, a random stratified sample of the text units extracted from the transcriptions was constructed. This sample included 54 text units, which were randomly inserted into a Word file with a grid for
Table 2 System of categories: number and percentage of text units used in the content analysis, by cat-egory/subcategory
Category Subcategory Number of text units
(%)
1. Strengths 1.1 Authentic learning 37 25.31.2 Stimulation of intrinsic motivation 19 13.01.3 Lateral Learning 14 9.61.4 Development of non-cognitive skills 9 6.21.5 Other advantages 18 12.3
2. Weaknesses 2.1 Work overload 20 13.72.2 Anxiety 13 8.9
3. Evolution of perspectives on project-based learning
16 11.0
Total 146 100.0
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coding, and handed over to two judges who coded the data independently, using the codes provided to them (see Table 2). After receiving the judges’ coding decisions, the reliability of the coding system was calculated using Cohen’s k, which generated a score of 0.713, indicating good reliability (Brennan and Silman 1992). The cod-ing framework presented above served as a conceptual basis from which I report the findings in the next section.
Findings
In this section I concentrate on the three central categories that emerged in the anal-ysis (with their respective subcategories): students’ favorable points of view on the PjBL activities carried out in the course, their unfavorable points of view regarding this mode of learning and the evolution of their perspectives on the subject, over the
Table 3 Perceived levels of preparation to conduct a social research study and levels of motivation to attend classes, in project-based learning versus lecture-based teaching (7-point scale)
Student Perceived level of preparation in project-based learning
Perceived level of preparation in lecture-based teaching
Level of motivation in project-based classes
Level of motivation in lecture-based classes
E1 5 3.5 7 Less than 7E2 5 Less than 5 7 Less than 7E3 6 Less than 6 7 Less than 7E4 4 Less than 4 6 Less than 5E5 4 4 4 Less than 4E6 5 Less than 5 6 Less than 6E7 6 Less than 6 7 Less than 7E8 6 4 7 Less than 7E9 5 Less than 5 6 Less than 6E10 6 3 7 Less than 7E11 5 3 6 Less than 6E12 6 4 7 Less than 7E13 3 1 7 Less than 7E14 4 3 6 Less than 6E15 6 4 5 5E16 4 Less than 4 6 Less than 6E17 5 Less than 5 7 Less than 7E18 4 2 6 Less than 6E19 5 2 7 Less than 7E20 5 3 5 Less than 5E21 5 6 6 5E22 4 Less than 4 6 Less than 6E23 6 5 7 5E24 5 5 6 6
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course of the semester. I explore each of these themes in more detail below, illus-trating the presentation with verbatim quotes from the interviews. Participants are referred to by their ID codes in order to preserve confidentiality.
Strengths of project‑based learning
The overwhelming majority of participants positively evaluated the project-based activities in which they were involved. In order to obtain a summary measure of their overall perception of the learning benefits and/or shortcomings of this peda-gogy, they were invited to use a 7-point scale to rate how prepared they felt to inde-pendently conduct a social research study, after finishing the course. They were also asked to rate the degree to which they thought they would have been prepared, if instead they had learned via a teacher-centered, lecture system. The results are pre-sented in the second and third columns of Table 3.
The overwhelming majority of the students (21 out of 24) felt that they had learned more and become better prepared to conduct a research study in the project-based system, as compared to what would have happened if they had used a lecture-style system. Most of the participants also reported that in their experience PjBL had much more strengths than weaknesses. Below I focus on the strengths that were mentioned by the students, which are organized into five subcategories.
Authentic learning
Participants generally felt that in PjBL student learning is more real, true and deep, as the student is not limited to simply memorizing content presented by the instruc-tor, but instead has the opportunity to apply what is learned to real-world situations.
The [lecture-based, written] test system (…) often makes us memorize the material and then just dump it in the test, and perhaps in a month or so we no longer remember anything that we learned. Unlike this project system, as probably when we do something like this again, we will remember a lot of the things that we did, or even everything. (E10).
Respondents emphasized that in their view one only truly learns by doing.
I think it was better than we did the project, because I think that we had more contact with what we are supposed to do [when we become professionals] and we learned better than we would have if we had just been watching Power-Point slides. We probably wouldn’t have become so aware of how things actu-ally work. In doing the actual project, we learn better, and perhaps we became more knowledgeable, in case we have to do it again in the future. (E7).
Students emphasized that, in their experience, in the lecture method they could study for a test and pass it without having really learned, contrary to what occurred in the project-based system.
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I think [PjBL] is a good method if we compare it to, for example, the test-based, lecture system, because I think that you learn a lot more with it than merely by doing a test that doesn’t test much, because you can study for it only two days before and still be able to pass it. In contrast, in the pro-ject we ran into some difficulties that that made us have to go back to the course materials and talk to each other and discuss things (…). And that turns out to be a way of learning too, and, in that sense, it turns out to be much more productive and prepares us much better for conducting a [real-world] research study. (E13).
In short, the students stated that in lecture-based teaching they were able to achieve good test results without actually learning, whereas the project-based system allowed them to experience authentic learning, by applying theoretical and method-ological ideas to actual research situations and practicing what they were learning.
Stimulation of intrinsic motivation
Most students also stated that project-based classes were more interesting, more engaging, more dynamic, and captured more students’ attention than traditional teacher-centered classes. In the interviews, participants were asked to rate their level of motivation to attend project-based research methods classes, on a scale of 1 to 7, compared to the motivation that they experienced when going to lecture-based classes. The results are displayed in the fourth and fifth columns of Table 3 and show that students’ levels of motivation to attend the project-based classes and develop collaborative projects were remarkably high and, with only one exception, consistently higher than those reported for the lecture-based courses.
In participants’ view, project-based work avoided student boredom and stimu-lated their motivation to perform the tasks proposed by the instructor.
I think [lecture-based teaching] is not … not as appealing as when we are given the opportunity to do something other than spend two hours in a situa-tion where the professor just talks and talks and we just listen. (…) Above all, I think it is much more attractive for the student to have this option. (E13).[The predominant teaching method in the program] is undoubtedly the trans-mission method. Most instructors always take the same approach: they lecture with the support of their PowerPoint slides; the students take their notes and then we take two tests. It’s always the same thing and I think that after a while the students get tired of this system, because it’s boring. (…) I prefer to do project work, because (…) it’s got a different kind of dynamics. It’s completely different. The students become more motivated, they don’t feel bored (…) [they] feel more stimulated and are able to be more active and to involve them-selves more in the course. (E5).
The students also stressed that working with something that they had developed themselves was much more engaging and stimulating than merely listening to fac-ulty lecture about course topics:
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I think that project work is much more attractive [than lecture-style teaching]. (…) I think it becomes much more interesting to work with our own data in this course and we learn … we learn as well, but we learn in a more real way, because we are working with data that we collected ourselves. (…) I think it becomes more interesting. (E13).
The students’ reports about this issue clearly underscore the potential of a pro-ject-based system to spur students’ sheer enjoyment of learning.
Lateral learning
The participants also valued the fact that PjBL allowed them to learn from their group peers, not just the instructor.
There was a lot of learning among us inside my group. I learned a few things about SPSS [laughs] that they taught me. (…) when I had the opportunity, I tried to learn something about it from them. (E18).
Participants also stressed that collaborative project work allowed them to comple-ment one another and to build on one another’s individual strengths:
I think that working in a group is great way of learning. We’re in contact with other people and each one knows a different thing. Instead of doing an indi-vidual job… we may not have the same ideas as the other person. So, we com-plement one another. (E10).
In short, the project-based system encouraged the students to perceive their own peers as valuable learning sources.
Development of non‑cognitive skills
In the collaborative projects, the students also valued the acquisition of important skills, besides content knowledge. For example, some stressed that collaborative project work helped them develop their interpersonal skills.
The fact that in our research project we had to go to other peoples’ classrooms to collect data helped us learn how to approach and talk to people, how to solve [unforeseen] situations, I think that was important. It’s important because we always find it difficult to relate to people we don’t know and we had to go to the field and talk to them. (E11).
Participants also felt that PjBL greatly facilitated their development of teamwork skills.
[In project work, you develop the ability to] work in groups and in situations where you… [you have to] to make decisions, to know how to divide the tasks among group members and so on. This requires us to develop a different kind of skills than those required by teacher lectures and written tests. (E15).
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Other participants also mentioned that doing the projects and discussing every-thing related to them with the instructor enhanced their decision-making abilities, their autonomy and their sense of personal responsibility.
[What I liked the most about this course] was the opportunity that the students were given to participate in the decisions regarding the learning method to be adopted and how they would be assessed. This is a possibility and a power that is often idealized by some teachers and communicated to the students, but in many … many times the teachers don’t actually act on it, they don’t allow room for the students to exercise their ability to make deci-sions. And that was the main thing … the main thing that I liked about this course. (…) everyone had room to express their opinion and I felt that we really participated in the whole construction of the course. (E1).
I think that a university should serve, above anything else, to develop one’s capacity to function autonomously, and also the students’ sense of responsi-bility to perform a task that is assigned to them. (…) I think that this learn-ing method greatly develops these skills. (E22).
In short, participants felt that collaborative project work helped them develop their interpersonal and teamwork skills, their decision-making abilities, their individual autonomy and their sense of personal responsibility.
Other advantages
Participants alluded to other advantages of the problem-based method which do not fall so clearly into the previous subcategories. Each of these advantages was referred by a smaller number of participants. For example, one stressed that PjBL generates a closer relationship between the instructor and the students and allows more room to clarify questions (E4). Some students valued the continued sup-port that the model provided for their learning growth (E1, E10, E13, E15, E18, E19, E21, E22). They emphasized the advantages of the clear structure that was provided for the project, with well-specified steps, goals and deadlines set by the instructor and frequent instructor follow-up, with continuous feedback to the stu-dents informing them about the aspects that they needed to improve at each stage. Several also valued the fact that doing the project prepared them well for carry-ing out future projects in their program and in their future professional lives (E1, E2, E11, E13, E14, E15, E24). They also valued the opportunity to develop the projects during class time rather than, as other instructors did, outside of class time (E1, E4, E24). A participant believed that PjBL is a much better system for solving very complex problems (E21). One thought that PjBL is a fairer system, because students are able to show what they have done over a period of months, rather than in only two tests that may sometimes go wrong (E1, E22). Others emphasized that tests don’t really measure students’ abilities and that PjBL allows the student to display a wider range of skills (E13, E23).
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Weaknesses of project‑based learning
Although the vast majority of participants valued their experience with the col-laborative research projects, a few still expressed criticisms or alluded to less posi-tive aspects of their experience. Often these unfavorable statements were proffered, while still assuming that this learning system contained mostly positive aspects. This category comprises two subcategories, each of which refers to a specific set of disadvantages of the project learning model highlighted by the students.
Work overload
Six participants felt that doing the group project involved much more work than the usual lecture-style system, which is based on individual study for a small number of written tests (usually, two). One of the ways that PjBL was experienced as involving much more work than the usual lecture-based course was that it demanded students to be constantly involved in their projects rather than enjoy frequent periods of dis-engagement from course work.
[The project work was] more demanding [than taking tests], because it required that we [dedicate] ourselves to the course throughout the whole semester. Sometimes, when we have courses that only take tests, we just think about the course close to the day of the test, whereas in the project we had to remain constantly engaged. (E15).
Another reason why some students felt that project-based work involved too much work was that, compared to lecture-based teaching, it made time management more difficult, as it was hard to reconcile the agendas of the various group members or the various tasks that the students had to perform simultaneously in different courses.
At the time I would have preferred to take a test, because we had a lot of assignments that had to be done for different courses and the deadlines were very close to one another, and I thought that maybe, if it had been a test, it would have been easier for us to manage. (E17).
One student explicitly complained that doing the project took away time needed to study for other courses:
It was a bit more demanding [than the other courses], because inserting the data into SPSS in the quantitative stage required a lot of time and a lot of focus so that wouldn’t mess up. And then, in the qualitative stage, we had to go look for people [to interview] and to reconcile other people’s schedules with ours. (…) it was very demanding, it required a lot of time (…) and it took it from other courses. (E2).
While these students expressed criticism of the workload involved in PjBL and presented this as a reason for at least reducing the amount of time devoted to this method, there were others (E6, E8, E9, E11, E13, E15, E23) who mentioned that
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while they worked a lot harder in PjBL, they also learned a lot more than with other teaching methods, so they didn’t mind the extra work.
Anxiety
Five respondents mentioned that project work generated anxiety, fear, nervousness and/or stress. For the most part, these reports referred to tensions experienced by these students when they had to publicly present the results of their project at the international student research conference.
I thought that taking our project and presenting it at the [conference] was a bit intimidating. (E20).
I was a little scared and I felt that I couldn’t do it, because I had never done anything like that before. (E14).
While this type of anxiety was experienced by some students, it was associated almost exclusively with facing an audience beyond the classroom (a first experience of this kind for all of them), rather than with developing the project itself.
Evolution of perspectives on project‑based learning
The data show that the learning system was able to gradually win over several stu-dents who were initially reluctant to do team-based, research projects. Students’ interest, personal investment and engagement with the projects increased over time.
I think my interest in the project was gradually growing, because I was more and more aware that the project was helping me to learn a lot more than if the instructor had only lectured. (E17).
Strong evidence of the ability of this learning system to attract the more reluctant students is found in the way the students decided to vote, in the middle of the semes-ter, when they were given the choice to either continue developing their projects into a qualitative phase or switch over to a lecture-base system.
Initially, when we started working on the first part of the project [the quan-titative survey], my inclination was that I would rather take a test, as I found the idea of developing a project a little daunting and difficult. However, later, when the instructor asked us if we wanted to take a written test or to move into a second [qualitative] stage in the project, my view was clearly that we should go on with the project, because … in the first stage, we learned so much, so I assumed that this would continue to happen in the second stage. (E10).At the time [in the middle of the semester], I was very thorn apart (…) because in the first semester I was able to take a test and it worked beautifully and I got a very good grade, and so I thought that maybe I was going to be fine again if we took another test. But, on the other hand, the experience of being able to do an interview [in the qualitative stage of the project], I think that was crucial (…). Having this foundation is critical. And so that’s why I was split. In the
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end, I think it was a very good thing [that we didn’t switch to lecture mode], because [the development of the project] was a very enriching experience and I know that now I am much better prepared to do that kind of work in the future. (E24).
Several participants mentioned how their levels of motivation to work on their projects increased over time. A few explained that initially their felt insecure about their abilities to do this kind of work but that over time they became more familiar with the process and gradually increased confidence with what they were doing.
[My opinion on the project work system] became more favorable as the semes-ter progressed, for one very simple reason: in the beginning, everything was all so open and fuzzy that I didn’t even know if we would be able do such a thing, that is, I doubted our ability to … to get the job done. (E13).Initially, the motivation was lower, because I thought that I wouldn’t be able to do [the project], that I wasn’t really prepared do that kind of thing (…). But then, when I started to see how it worked and what it was like, the motivation increased, as I realized: "Hey, after all, it looks like I’m going to be able to do it”. (E12).
Even the more anxiety-laden situation of participating in the young researchers’ conference ended up being strongly valued by the participants. Several interview testimonies (not displayed here, for reasons of space) illustrate the shift from the ini-tial panic associated with this assignment to the experience of pride and satisfaction for having participated in the event.
Discussion
The challenges involved in teaching research methods to university undergraduates have been discussed previously by several scholars who point out the usefulness of adopting a pedagogical system that actively engages students in research activities tied to real-world problems and data. In this paper I have described one such system, the implementation of a semester-long, project-based learning process that focused on the development, by small groups of students, of a complete, small-scale research study, including the presentation of the findings in an international student research conference.
Previous studies have reported similar pedagogical innovations, but few have focused on how students, rather than instructors, experience the implementation of these systems, and even fewer have documented how students’ views on the sys-tems progress over time. Since in the field of research on the learning of research methods there is a considerable lack of studies on students’ experiences of project-based innovations in higher education (McKinney 2018), the main contribution of the present paper is the qualitative exploration and illustration of these students’ perspectives on how the pedagogical choices of their instructors impact their learn-ing. The study showed how such a system was perceived by the students and how they reacted to it and came to view it as a more positive and productive way of
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learning, when compared to traditional lecturing. The students preferred to work in their group projects much more than to attend lecture-based courses where there was mostly a one-way flow of information between an expert and the class. They reported that in the lecture system they could actually get good grades while work-ing much less, but still not really learn much about course content. In their view, in PjBL, learning was more authentic—the system helped them to actually understand content topics and be able to apply them to real-world contexts, rather than merely memorize and quickly forget about them shortly after tests were taken. They also stated that PjBL motivated them much more to attend classes and develop their pro-jects, while in lecture-based courses they felt bored and found it difficult to concen-trate. PjBL spurred their joy of learning. Furthermore, the students stated that PjBL helped them develop other important kinds of skills besides cognition and memory, such as interpersonal skills, teamwork skills and personal autonomy and responsibil-ity. They also felt that they were more respected as individuals with the ability to make their own decisions. Being able to learn from group peers, rather than just the instructor, was also highlighted as an important strength of the PjBL system.
The students’ reports of their learning experiences support the claim made by Trigwell and Prosser (2004) and others (e.g., (e.g., Bartholomay 2018; Huggins and Stamatel 2015; Sagy et al. 2019) that the lecture-based approach to teach-ing in higher education is linked to surface approaches to learning and negatively associated with deeper learning. The findings also support the claim that project-based learning has the potential to counteract these tendencies by building direct links between sociological inquiries and students’ real-life experiences (Eglitis et al. 2016) and to increase students’ interest in social science (Markle 2017).
The negative aspects of students’ experience with PBL in higher education are much less explored in research on this subject. The present study contributes to overcoming this gap by showing that, despite overwhelmingly positive perceptions and experiences, participants also experience disadvantages in the new learning sys-tem. More specifically, two main negative issues emerged from the data. First, the students felt that they had to work much more for their research methods course than for other courses, which made it difficult for them to find time to meet all the dead-lines and to comply with all the requirements in their program. Still, the larger work-load was not necessarily regarded as a negative feature of the system by the majority of the participants, as many didn’t mind working more, as they perceived that they were also able to learn much more through this system, and in a more enjoyable way. The second drawback was the experience of anxiety regarding the fulfilment of project requirements, although this perception was related mostly to the experi-ence of having to speak in front of an audience in the final stage of the project, dur-ing the conference presentation, rather than in the development of project work as a whole, and after finishing the project and the conference presentation most actually reported that it was worth the effort and that they felt proud of what they were able to achieve.
The results also confirmed that, because they are so used to the routines of the lecture-based method and the roles that it allocates to the student, at first some stu-dents find it difficult to operate in a project-based, team-structured learning system (Holmes and Hwang 2016). While some studies suggest that students are eventually
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able to adjust to such a system and that their initial anxiety can be mitigated (Aslan and Reigeluth 2016; Huggins and Stamatel 2015; Lombard and Kloppers 2015), this issue is relatively under-researched in higher education. By showing that even the more reluctant students can indeed find the PjBL model attractive and valuable, as they become accustomed and attracted to it over time, our results support the notion of students’ gradual adjustment to PjBL over time and thus help extend knowledge on this issue.
The pedagogical system described in this paper involved the design of oppor-tunities for students to experience real-life research situations and to develop pro-jects based on their own interests and which evolved as a function of decisions that they made themselves. The paper did not set out to provide evidence on the out-come effectiveness of this PjBL design, as I did not collect comparative outcome data from control groups in other research methods courses using the lecture style of teaching. What the results do indicate is that this kind of learning system has strong potential to attract students’ interest and to engage them more actively and genu-inely in the learning process. Ideally, the design of this study would have included a "control class" in which students learned research methods with a lecture-based structure. However, there was no such case in the institution where the analysis was conducted. I might have used classes from other institutions as comparison cases, but this would include so many confounding variables (different class sizes and compositions, types of institution and programs, different instructors, etc.) that com-parisons between cases would be unwarranted. Since the ideal research design for the study was unfeasible, I relied on the information that provided the best possi-ble approximation to students’ experiences with the lecture-based teaching method: their own recollections of their learning experiences with this type of method in pre-vious semesters (more precisely, in three semesters, including a total of 15 distinct courses) and their experiences of that pedagogical system in the other (four) courses in which they were enrolled at the time of the study. I acknowledge that these data are not an ideal source of counterfactual causal inference, but they do allow us to qualitatively contrast the experiences of the same students in radically distinct learn-ing environments.
The research was carried out by me while I also acted as instructor of the course. Like all research where the researcher is also a participant, this mix of roles makes the study more complex and challenging. Potentially, my involvement in the design and implementation of the project-based learning structure, as well as my advoca-tion of its strengths and benefits, may have generated some bias towards the posi-tive outcomes of the system. There is no way that I can assure that this bias was totally absent. Saying otherwise would be intellectually dishonest. However, being a researcher with more than thirty years of experience doing qualitative studies, I have learned to be cautious about my own assumptions when conducting fieldwork and how they may contaminate my research findings. Therefore, I have taken great care in developing self-awareness and being a careful observer of the people and events around me. This involved being constantly aware of my biases and controlling their expression. As Bernard (1994) put it, “objectivity means becoming aware of one’s biases, and transcending them, not the lack of any biases. (…) Striving for objec-tivity is important even if perfect objectivity is unobtainable” (p. 172). Half-way
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through the semester, the class took a vote on whether it wanted to continue with the project-based methodology or switch to a lecture-based learning model. Addi-tionally, some students were still not sold to project-based learning at the end of the semester and they freely expressed this point of view in the interviews. Both of these facts suggest that I have not constrained the class towards complying with my views on what learning social research methods should look like.
Besides affecting and informing my own pedagogical practice, the results of this study also have potential wider institutional implications. Because of the isolated, fragmented nature of teaching cultures in most educational institutions, innova-tions introduced in individual classrooms do not necessarily translate into changes in colleagues’ ways of working with students in other classes. These processes are complex and require considerable time for dissemination. I have been developing an ongoing dialogue with department colleagues and the department leader to stimu-late them to introduce improvements in their pedagogical practices that are inspired by a project-based learning model. In particular, the department head is now active in these efforts and encourages the acceptance of these standards by departmental peers.
Besides the limitations of the instructor-researcher role mentioned above, it is also important to recognize the limitations of relying on student feedback when con-ducting studies such as this. However, in my view, student feedback should not be entirely dismissed, as the way that students experience and view a pedagogical sys-tem can clearly influence how effectively that system will produce the results that it is expected to produce.
The data was collected after the end of the semester, after all tests had already been taken and all students knew their final grades. This decision benefited the study, as the researcher removed the possible concerns that students might have that voicing their honest opinions would affect their grades. On the other hand, this time of conducting data collection may also have a created a validity problem, as students who received higher grades than expected may have overreacted favorably to the project-based system. Future studies may provide comparative details on students’ expected grades and the actual grades that they earn in such learning systems.
A further limitation of the study is that it used a particular sample of students drawn from a limited set of courses within one single institution. Thus, the study is limited in scope and its findings should be interpreted as merely suggestive, with limited generalizability. As Nind and Lewthwaite (2018, p. 400) have pointed out, ‘while making an important contribution, pedagogic research needs to also move beyond the local and immediate to the practices of methods teachers as a set of related communities in diverse pedagogic contexts’. Ideally, future research on the present topic will focus on larger, more diverse populations in a wider set of higher education institutions, and include more evidence on students’ points of view and behaviors.
Despite the abovementioned limitations, the results of this study still have rel-evant implications for pedagogical practice in higher education institutions, as they show that it is possible to successfully implement an active learning, project-based learning system, even in a large undergraduate class. The study also suggests which elements are important in such a system, from the student’s perspective. Hopefully,
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these results will inspire other practitioners to consider adopting similar strategies in their teaching and stimulate researchers to delve more deeply into the ways students perceive their teachers’ pedagogical choices and react to them.
Data availability The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The author states that there is no conflict of interest.
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