6533b835fe1ef96bd129f582

RESEARCH PRODUCT

How Students Get Going : Triggers for Students’ Learning in Project-Based Education

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description

Repeatedly documented positive student responses to project-based learning during its decades-long tradition in CS attest to the effectiveness of learning by doing. Support for reflective learning nevertheless continues to be a topic worth studying because the intensity of project work together with a high technical orientation among CS students often complicate reflective practice. A critical incident-inspired assignment was added to a project-based course to support reflective practice in spring 2017. In a previous study, the authors analyzed how students approached the assignment and whether they found it supportive for learning. The present study content-analyses the situations that triggered experiences of learning, as indicated by student-written incident reports during the projects. The results show that students' experience of needing to do something for the project, hands-on experience, problems they encounter during the work, interaction, and receiving new information are all triggers for learning during the project. Students' internal processing and external demands were also identified as triggers, but do not seem to be effective as often as the other triggers in this data. The results provide a detailed view on the students' learning ``triggers,'' and hence complement the general, favorable assumption of learning by doing.