Lessons from on-line and off-line PBL in an engineering economics course under the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

The application and effects of the project-based learning (PBL) model have been carried out in various majors and courses, and the results analysed in several studies. This study was focused on the Covid-19 pandemic period from 2020 to 2022 to discuss lessons and effects of applying an on-line and off-line PBL model to engineering economics courses for engineering students in 2021 and 2022 compared with a simple on-line course in 2020 without PBL. Project teams consisting of three-four students carried out on-line collaborative learning to solve open-ended problems through a four-step PBL procedure including presentation of the final result. Except for this PBL application in 2021 and 2022, textbooks, lecture contents, assignments and tests were implemented in the same way for each semester over these three years. Through lecture evaluation and a simple survey for students, the semesters with PBL showed higher effects in inducing student-led learning and lecture satisfaction compared to the semesters without it. Further, it was established that the PBL application to the course and the evaluation method were more appropriate than the approach in other semesters. It is expected that the PBL method and operation procedure outlined in this article could be utilised as a best practice for various on-line and mixed courses in student-led collaborative learning activities to achieve better educational effects and satisfaction