EVALUATION BY THE STUDENTS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PROJECT ORIENTED LEARNING IN AN EXPERIMENTAL SUBJECT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

The process of European convergence (Bologna) currently being implemented in European universities involves training in some generic and specific competences. According to this, teachers should promote learning situations through which students develop the ability of solving problems as close to professional practice as possible. Within this context, the use of active methodologies enable the development of certain competencies which are very relevant to the professional level, and which cannot be developed with the sole application of master class. In this sense, the project oriented learning is a teaching-learning method in which students undertake a project to solve a problem through the planning, design and implementation of a series of tasks. Some of the main advantages of this method are the possibility of developing some relevant competences for the professional work and the option of conduct multidisciplinary works in groups of students. From several academic years, project oriented learning has been applied in an experimental subject in degree of Chemical Engineering of the “Universidad Politécnica de Valencia”.

Project oriented learning is applied in the subject “Advanced Experimentation” that is taught over both semesters of grade four. The main objective of the application of this methodology in this subject is to introduce students to the design of industrial facilities through a working methodology close to their professional future.

During last years in which this methodology has been applied, we have asked students to do an anonymous evaluation of the main aspects of the subject. In this evaluation, students openly indicate the strong points and the points for improvement of the subject. In this paper, we analyse the main items identified by students more often. From this analysis we have designed a more structured assessment survey in order to obtain information about some important aspects that are not mentioned in the open survey by students. This new survey consists of a part of leading questions with 3 response options, and another part of evaluation through open comments. This survey has been passed on to the students in the course 2011-12 in “Advanced Experimentation after finishing the first semester. Present paper describes the new survey and analyses student responses in the present year.