Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
15th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, Sevilla, İspanya, 7 - 08 Kasım 2022, ss.8074-8079
Higher education teachers have been challenged to respond to an
increasing diversity of students and to help them develop skills for the
21st century. Acknowledging the potential of supportive pedagogical
relationships and student-centered practices, Project-Based Learning
(PBL) constitutes an active teaching method that seems to benefit both
teachers and students. This work is embedded on the Project Restart for
Education in a Digital Era through Project-based E-learning
(RESTART4EDU) and aims at describing the needs and expectations
regarding project-based learning from Romanian, Portuguese, and Turkish
higher education teachers. Participants included 39 teachers (69.2%
female) from Romania (41%), Portugal (23%), and Turkey (36%), with one
to 30 years of teaching experience (M = 13.85, DP = 8.77) in several
fields (e.g., Education, Psychology, Medicine). Teachers completed a
questionnaire regarding their PBL-related conceptions, needs, and
expectations. Descriptive statistics results suggested that most
teachers had no previous PBL training (89.7%) and frequently used an
expository method of teaching (61.5%). Still, most participants were
slightly familiar with PBL (64.1%), convinced that it could hold a
positive impact on teaching-learning processes (100%), and willing to
learn more and use it in their practice (100%). Results from
cross-country difference tests indicated that Turkish teachers felt
significantly less confident to use PBL than Romanian and Portuguese
teachers, which might be due to variations in the organizational support
provided to teachers’ practice. These findings support the need to
create tools and conditions to improve higher education teachers’
knowledge and experience on active methods, such as PBL.