“Choice may not necessarily be a good thing”: student attitudes to autonomy in interdisciplinary project-based learning in GEES disciplines

Harmer, Nichola; Stokes, Alison

doi:10.1080/03098265.2016.1174817

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(52 reference statements)

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“…In short, ownership is important, but student-choices should be structured, limited and supplemented to ensure that the student's sense of self-efficacy is not overwhelmed (Baeten, Struyven, & Dochy, 2013). For example, in one case study, geography, earth and environmental sciences students early on in their academic careers benefit from being given a topic for their project; as this task can easily overwhelm students new to the subject and the autonomy required in project-based learning (Harmer & Stokes, 2016).…”

Section: Building Motivation and Engagement Through Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Expectation, motivation, engagement and ownership: using student reflections in the conative and affective domains to enhance residential field courses

Scott

Humphries

Henri

2019

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

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Residential field courses are important and should be designed and delivered to maximise their value to students, staff and institutions. In this context we use a novel approach involving analysis of the daily affective and conative reflections of students immersed in the field course experience to better understand student engagement with fieldwork. We show that students base their field course choice on a range of factors (costs and benefits) and that these choices subsequently influence student expectations and motivation to engage with fieldwork. We also show that the motivation of students to engage with fieldwork based learning varies from person to person and from day to day. Our findings suggest that having a more nuanced understanding of the decisions students make when deciding which field course to enrol upon would enhance our ability to design attractive, accessible and useful field courses; that having an awareness of the expectations of students around field courses would enable us to better prepare them to undertake them; and, that students are more motivated when they are afforded an opportunity to work independently and perceive themselves to have ownership of their learning.

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Section: Building Motivation and Engagement Through Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Expectation, motivation, engagement and ownership: using student reflections in the conative and affective domains to enhance residential field courses

Scott

Humphries

Henri

2019

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

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“…This approach is common to many field courses; Panelli and Welch (2005) suggest that fieldwork training is necessary before increasing student autonomy and Scott et al (2012) suggest that the best field courses are iterative whereby students are given the opportunity to use past experiences to inform their future practice. Furthermore, Harmer and Stokes (2016) showed that students value relevant training before being given tasks with high levels of autonomy.…”

Section: Recognising Skills and Their Valuementioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of fieldwork design on student perceptions of skills development during field courses

Peasland

Henri

Morrell

et al. 2019

International Journal of Science Education

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The influence of fieldwork design on student perceptions of skills development during field coursesEmployability is a key issue for students and Higher Education Institutions and a key component of employability is possessing the skills a role requires. In the environmental sciences, fieldwork has been shown to provide an opportunity for students to develop employability-enhancing technical and transferable skills.However, students can have difficulty identifying the transferable skills they develop both during fieldwork and throughout their degree programmes. We investigated whether different pedagogical approaches to fieldwork (in which staff or students design the field investigations) influenced the skills that students developed and identified. Additionally, we explored whether students recognised that skills developed during fieldwork might enhance their employability, which was previously unclear.Collecting data daily throughout three residential field courses provided a novel approach to assessing student perceptions of skills development through fieldwork as much previous research has focused on post-course data collection. Overall, students recognised technical skills more frequently than transferable skills and were able to link their skills development to their future employability. However, when fieldwork investigations were staff-led, students recognised more technical skills, but when students designed their fieldwork investigations themselves they recognised more transferable skills. We suggest that to maximise the skills development benefits of fieldwork, field courses should include a variety of fieldwork teaching designs to allow students to develop the widest array of skills possible. Additionally, students should be encouraged to reflect on their experiences throughout a field course as reflection is thought to aid their ability to recognise how their skills have developed.

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“…In addition to the benefits, studies also provide useful insight into the challenges students faced in PjBL (Harmer and Stokes, 2016; Seet and Quek, 2010; Palmer and Hall, 2011; Neal et al , 2011; Gulbahar and Tinmaz, 2006). The most commonly mentioned issue in PjBL was related to workload.…”

Section: Review Of Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Pakistani undergraduate students’ perceptions of project-based learning in the English composition course

Sultan

Javaid

2018

JARHE

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how BS first-year students of the computer science department at a private university in Karachi perceive project-based learning (PjBL) implemented in the English composition course. The more specific objectives were to bring to light the benefits and challenges associated with PjBL from the students’ standpoint. Research works on students’ perceptions of project-based learning particularly in English language teaching remains an underresearched area in Pakistan and this makes this study useful and essential. Design/methodology/approach Adopting the lens of constructionism, this study used the qualitative approach for investigation. Thus, to achieve an in-depth insight into students’ perceptions, they were provided an opportunity to reflect and freely report their views regarding the project approach. The participants in this study formulate perceptions about a given phenomenon based on a thoughtful analysis of their experiences with that phenomenon. The qualitative researcher aims to get a deep understanding of these views of the participants, and so this study employed accounts and drawings as data collection tools. The data were then content analyzed. Findings Upon data analysis, two major themes emerged being the benefits and challenges associated with PjBL. The benefits can be further divided into academic and non-academic benefits. The major academic benefit was that the project approach allowed students to achieve a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the subject matter whereas the non-academic benefits include enhanced communication and negotiation skills, time management, creative and critical thinking skills. The major challenges faced by the students were related to time management and getting along with each other in groups. Originality/value The research problem is a scarcely explored area in Pakistani English language teaching in higher education. Moreover, the use of student drawings as a data collection method is an unusual method for this research problem.

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“Choice may not necessarily be a good thing”: student attitudes to autonomy in interdisciplinary project-based learning in GEES disciplines

Cited by 19 publications

References 25 publications

Expectation, motivation, engagement and ownership: using student reflections in the conative and affective domains to enhance residential field courses

Expectation, motivation, engagement and ownership: using student reflections in the conative and affective domains to enhance residential field courses

The influence of fieldwork design on student perceptions of skills development during field courses

Pakistani undergraduate students’ perceptions of project-based learning in the English composition course

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