Abstract:

Current trends in higher education involves a shift from teaching to learning, requiring students to take on an active role, developing autonomy and soft skills [1]. In this context, an interesting approach is the relationship between Project-Based Learning (PBL) and the learning-related activity with the aim to understand if the teaching/learning system has a good performance and generates the desired outcomes [2].

The work pursued aims at presenting an experimental, real data based, study on how students teams develop within the learning process. How the collaborative activity contributes towards a satisfactory learning. Satisfaction questionnaires are designed and used to measure this activity.

In a first stage, a 51-Item Satisfaction and Cognitive Styles Questionnaire (CSEC) was developed from the Satisfaction Questionnaire by Recio and Cabero [3], the Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire (RSPQ-2F) [2] and also included questions from McGregor [4], Shein [5] and Tobarra [6] questionnaires.

This review of questionnaires is done with the aim to analyze how useful it may be the use of engineering projects in the development of learning. The context of the analysis is done within the subject on an engineering degree. Specifically, in the Engineering Degrees of the Technical School of Vilanova i la Geltrú (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Barcelona Tech, Spain), there is a subject called Sustainability and Accessibility. It is within the Accessibility part that the students create teams and follow a PBL approach to understand and apply universal design principles.

The study aims to address:
1) the learning process of the students,
2) group collaboration activity in order to solve the tasks, and
3) the acquisition of competencies on universal design principles.

The paper presents the structure and development of the human centered based projects defined within the PBL experience. Also, a detailed presentation and interpretation of the designed satisfaction questionnaires is presented. Special emphasis is put on showing how it is intended to get the information related to the collaborative aspects that raised within the project. Finally, the results of the questionnaires are presented and interpreted. Suggestions on incorporation of collaborative ventures within the learning activities is recommended as a positive way towards enhancement of the student active role in the learning process.

On that basis, the contributions of the present work are to show the methodology used, the effort to generate questionnaires and metrics for the measurement of the students collaboration. Main conclusion is related to the satisfaction of the students specially on the collaborative aspects of the project.

References:
[1] Pere Ponsa, José Antonio Román, Elisabeth Arnó and Jaume Pérez. Professional Skills in International Multidisciplinary Teams. International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol 31, No 4, pp. 998-1006, 2015.
[2] Biggs, J.B., Kember, D., & Leung, D.Y.P. (2001) The Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire: R-SPQ-2F. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 71, 133-149
[3] Recio Saucedo, M. A. y Cabero Almenara, J. (2005). Enfoques de aprendizaje, rendimiento académico y satisfacción de los alumnos en formación en entornos virtuales. http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/368/36802510.pdf
[4] McGregor, Douglas. The human side of enterprise. Mc Graw-Hill. 1960.
[5] Schein, Edgar H. Organizational psychology. Prentice-Hall