Effectiveness of Project Based Learning Models on Student Interests and Learning Outcomes in Industrial Robot

Abstract

The resource-intensive aspect of project-based learning (PjBL) has prevented it from becoming more widely accepted in the tertiary education sector. For undergraduate engineering students, this paper introduces a transdisciplinary variant of PjBL through a multidisciplinary challenging engineering challenge requiring the design and construction of a hydraulic robot arm. Using the Chi-square hypothesis test, the robotics-inspired transdisciplinary PjBL variant was first assessed by student feedback. The results showed a statistically significant difference in the proportion of the student feedback in favor of the PjBL for sustainability of transdisciplinary project-based learning, with Chi-square (4, N = 101) = 129.12; p < 0.05. Additionally, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the students' PjBL and PbBL scores U (N = 101) = 192.00, z -p < 0.05. The results showed that PjBL was statistically significantly more effective than PbBL.