Acquiring 21st century skills through project based learning : exploring science students' perceptions of their experiences at two Malaysian public universities

Abstract

The researcher has explored the impact of project-based learning (PjBL) on the acquisition of 21st century skills by the science students of two selected Malaysian higher educational institutions. The researcher has investigated the types of skills students have acquired during the project implementation, and endeavored to understands what aspects of PjBL have impacted the acquisition of skills and the challenges for acquiring 21st century skills. To conduct the research the researcher has obtained qualitative case study methods. In total eight in-depth semi-structured interviews had been conducted from purposefully selected participants from two purposefully selected public universities of Malaysia. The research also analyzed one combined video that consists of presentation videos prepared by eight different groups participated in the project. Next, the interviewing segment is central to generating data to be used for in-depth analyses of the PjBL process. Lastly, the results from interview and video data analysis had been used to identify challenges faced by students during the skill-acquisition process. The result indicates that students have partially succeeded in acquiring a subset of overall skills in the array of 21st century skills. All the skill acquisition poses challenges associated with them. Students lack creativity skills and unfavorable pedagogical environment is one of the reasons responsible for their lack of creativity. Students believe that dependency on traditional assessment system hampers their skill acquisition specially creativity skill. Moreover, according to students’ perspective, the more autonomy they receive in choosing the project topic gets them more opportunity to be creative. Surprisingly, the students did not prefer total autonomy in their project work. In their perspective, time to time increased monitoring from the teacher would increase their skill acquisition in general. The students were given non-complex, simple problem which hampered their opportunity to exercise problem solving and critical thinking skills. Because of lack of appropriate diverse environment, students’ social and cross-cultural skill acquisition was impacted. It is hoped that a better understanding of the determinants of these challenges will lead to formulating solutions to the hindrances in PjBL practice in Malaysia. This research has implication for the policy makers and educational practitioners alike. Policy makers will be able to improve policy principles based on the findings of the research. By exploring the experiences of the students, the researchers will understand the skill acquisition process better which consequently will help future researchers to develop more rigorous and comprehensive assessment model.