Journal of Engineering Education Transformations

Abstract

Abstract— Project-based learning or Problem- based learning (PBL) is an effective student-focused, inquiry-driven teaching method which helps in enhancing knowledge acquisition and retention. PBL is identified with 5 principles: Problem identification and analysis, Project organization, Teamwork, Student-centeredness, and Project assessment. For the PBL implementation to be successful, it is important to have the course aligned with these 5 PBL principles. The context of this study is an undergraduate engineering course in its first year called; “Design Thinking for Social Innovation” offered in the author`s university. While the course majorly followed the PBL pedagogy, it lacked student ownership of learning and followed classroom teaching. Therefore, this study aims to promote student ownership of learning and assess its effect on their capacity to self-regulate their learning by developing content for students’ self-study in the online mode. To address the gap, the content of three modules was curated for online access and deliver the sessions in a flipped mode. This online intervention of learning material was offered to 35 students while the remaining 35 students took up the in-person version of the course. Both groups solved societal problems with immersive community engagement. A two-group design was used to study the impact of the intervention. The difference in self-regulated learning was measured using the existing questionnaire administered online at the end of the semester. Quantitative analysis using Mann-Whitney test was performed on the data. Results of the study reveal that statistically significant differences in SRL between the two groups for specific constructs, notably in Monitoring and Evaluation, where the flipped classroom showed an advantage in monitoring skills, while the inperson classroom demonstrated better performance in evaluation and planning skills. However, the faculty experience of conducting the course in flipped mode revealed that students owned their learning, which was evident through in-class discussions. Further, the authors aver that the success of PBL courses, especially at firstyear of undergraduate engineering largely depends on the effort and time the faculty can invest, often beyond scheduled class hours. The authors conclude that that students' capacity to self-regulate their learning was unaffected by the implementation of flipped learning in a course that was already using the PBL format.Further refinement of the flipped PBL approach may be needed to optimize performance across all SRL constructs.

Keywords-Problem-based learning, flipped classroom, design thinking for social innovation, student ownership, PBL principles.