Abstract:

Introduction:
Project-based learning is one of the important pedagogies in an area of engineering education. It helps students understand fundamental engineering concepts and build professional skills such as communication and teamwork. A goal of this study was to investigate how a process of planning, implementing and dealing with a problem might be related to performances of a team project. Each team had to answer three questions regarding the process daily during the project assignment. We hypothesized that when students encountered a problem, a group that tried to solve the problem early (planning and implementing) would achieve better performances in the project than other groups that do so later. Additionally, a group that spent more days planning their work would complete the project with better results than others who spent fewer days planning.

Methods:
Data collection was conducted in an undergraduate course of Statics and Dynamics for two sessions. During Fall 2015, a motion machine project was assigned to students (10 teams). They had to build a machine that could move continually after an energy was given only once and the last one stopping would win the tournament. They were also asked to answer three questions daily for four weeks: 1) Did you plan for your project today? 2) Did you build or construct a prototype for your project today? 3) Did you have any problem with your project today? During Fall 2016, the lecturer assigned a waterwheel project to another group of students (nine teams). They had to build a machine that could pump water continually after an energy was given only once and the last one stopping would win the tournament. They had to record their answers of the same questions for seven weeks. Moreover, the 12-Item grit scale was collected before and after the project assignment in order to evaluate student’s grit. The data were computed and categorized into three different factors, including a number of days before planning, a number of days before implementing, and a number of planning days before implementing. We used R, a statistical software, to analyze the correlations of these factors with the success of the project.

Results:
Results from the class of 2015 showed that there were no significant correlations between a number of days before planning and a duration that a machine could move, and a number of days before implementing and the duration. There was a positive correlation between a number of planning days before implementing and the tournament time, but it was not significant (r = .63, p = .1). Results from the class of 2016 also indicated that there was no significant correlation between a number of days before planning and implementing, and pumped volumes of water. Additionally, there was no significant correlation between a result of the 12-item grit scale and the volumes of water. Meanwhile, there was a substantial positive correlation between a number of planning days before implementing and the volumes of water (r = .72, p < .05).

Conclusion:
The aim of this study was to investigate how the process of planning, implementing and dealing with a problem influenced performances of a team project. The findings suggested that when the students had a problem with the project, when they started solving it did not affect their project’s outcomes. However, focusing more on planning before implementing or constructing a prototype has a positive influence on the final results.

Keywords:

Assessment, Project-based learning.