The current dissertation presents a review study and three empirical studies, focusing on the understanding of the state of the art of research about PjBL in higher education and the investigation... Show moreThe current dissertation presents a review study and three empirical studies, focusing on the understanding of the state of the art of research about PjBL in higher education and the investigation of the relation between PjBL and student outcomes in the context of Chinese higher education. Insights into the design and the implementation of PjBL curricula and their potential impact on student learning are informative for a broad array of higher education teachers and educational advisors. Show less
Project-based learning (PjBL) engages students in knowledge acquisition, application, and construction through artefact development. Based on the Community of Inquiry framework, this study... Show moreProject-based learning (PjBL) engages students in knowledge acquisition, application, and construction through artefact development. Based on the Community of Inquiry framework, this study characterized college students' social and cognitive presences in online PjBL and examined how presence was related to their academic performance. Twenty-four groups of students participated in a 3-week project via WeChat discussion groups and created a final product. Transcripts of students' online discourse were collected and analysed by a coding scheme. The quality of students' artefacts was evaluated by a grading rubric. Descriptive results showed that the component of affectiveness and the level of exploration accounted for the majority of students' social and cognitive presences, respectively. Stepwise regression analyses revealed that certain components and sub-components of students' social presence, and levels and sub-levels of their cognitive presence were positively associated with their academic performance. Practical implications for teachers and suggestions for further research are provided. Show less
This literature review on remote labs in higher education examined the empirical research on learning benefits of such labs. The aim of this study was to investigate what kinds of learning outcomes... Show moreThis literature review on remote labs in higher education examined the empirical research on learning benefits of such labs. The aim of this study was to investigate what kinds of learning outcomes were examined, how these effects were examined, and which findings these studies provided. Effects that were examined in the reviewed articles (k=23) concerned cognitive, behavioral, and affective learning outcomes. Overall, results showed positive findings with respect to all three types of learning outcomes: students gained conceptual knowledge, were engaged in the lab, and were satisfied with learning in a remote lab context. However, evaluation approaches of the learning outcomes were quite superficial, because examining the educational benefits of the remote labs was not the main focus of most articles. Future research should address this issue to provide more rigorous evidence about possible benefits of remote labs on student learning in higher education. Show less
Admiraal, W.F.; Post, L.; Guo, P.; Saab, N.; Makinen, S.; Rainio, O.; ... ; Danford, G. 2019
