Abstract:

Research in higher education has emphasized the need to implement successful educational actions for the development of competences. In this line, cooperative project-based learning has emerged, consisting of the autonomous work of group of students to apply the concepts of the subjects in projects, allowing an approach to the real world and a construction of knowledge. This methodology implies that the student is considered an active learner whose learning is based on the action and reflective resolution of problems that arise in their environment. Furthermore, the need to support teaching techniques with scientific evidence has highlighted the need to use experimental methodologies and the systematic evaluation of results. The present project aimed to provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness of this methodology in the degree of Psychology, making use of an experimental design and evaluating competences with tools with proven psychometric properties. A sample of 32 students enrolled in the subject Developmental Psychology in Childhood and Adolescence, in the 1st Year of the Degree in Psychology, performed a cooperative project and completed pre and post assessments. The overall cooperative project entailed two research studies, one focused on child development (two options were proposed, the analysis of child drawings to examine fine psychomotor development or the replication of classic Piaget’s experiments to explore cognitive development), and other one related to adolescent social and emotional development (aimed to carry out a qualitative study to analyse adolescent responses to a semi-structured interview concerning social and emotional experiences), based on previous studies by Gomez-Baya (2017, 2018a,b). Two questionnaires were administered to assess competences, student valuation and knowledge transference, which were previously validated by Trechera-Herreros, Morales-Fernandez & Gomez-Baya (2015) and Granado-Alcon, Alonso-Martin, Velez-Toral, Gomez-Baya & Herrera-Frutos (2018). Results suggested that cooperative project-based learning improved competence development, student valuation and knowledge transference in Psychology Degree. Discussion underlines the need to transform higher education by using evidence-based teaching methods.

Keywords:

Project-based learning, higher education, cooperative, competence, Psychology degree.