On Grouping Students and Work Topic Choice in Courses of Learning by Projects
Year: 2014
Editor: Erik Bohemia, Arthur Eger, Wouter Eggink, Ahmed Kovacevic, Brian Parkinson, Wessel Wits
Author: Lloveras, Joaquim
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)
Section: Learning Spaces
Page(s): 197-202
ISBN: 978-1-904670-56-8
Abstract
Two surveys were conducted among students in engineering courses where final work had to be delivered in the form of projects to ascertain their views regarding work group formation and topic choice. One survey was carried out in two courses at the end of the first semester of the 2013-14 academic year (December 2013), and the other in three courses at the beginning of the second semester (February 2014). The results of the two courses in the first semester, as well as results of the three courses in the second semester, were averaged. As the number of respondents in the first and second semesters was similar, the results of the two surveys were also averaged to obtain global views on the two issues. This is discussed in the discussion section.
The opinions expressed by the students can be used as a good starting point to motivate them positively. In this way, they become more engaged in the work and more committed to learning. The students were also consulted on their willingness to do (somehow rewarded) projects inspired by university research work or proposed by companies, for information purposes only. The results are mentioned at the end of the paper.
Keywords: Work groups, topics, motivation, projects, surveys