Impacts Of The Project-based Learning On Students'academic Competence

The project-based course of British Studies is to help English majors better understand Britain and improve their academic competence as well.Based on DiPerna & Elliott's(2002)theoretical framework of academic competence and academic competence evaluation scale(ACES),this research is to explore the impact of project-based learning on students' academic competence from four dimensions of literature skills,critical thinking skills,interpersonal skills and academic motivation.This study was conducted through a mixed method with questionnaires,semi-structured interviews,project outcomes and classroom observations as instruments of data collection.51 students who participated in the project-based course of British Studies were investigated who were 12 students,3 teachers and 3 course assistants.The findings are as follows.Firstly,project-based learning had a direct impact on the development of students' academic competence.The greatest impact was on students' interpersonal skills,followed by critical thinking skills and academic motivation skills.Compared with the above three,the impact of the project-based learning on students' literature skills was relatively small.Secondly,in the aspect of literature skills,project-based learning had an impact on students' literature collection,literature retrieval and literature analysis.In the aspect of critical thinking skill,the impact was mainly manifested in students' learning to classify information,investigate a problem,and draw conclusions from observations.In the aspect of interpersonal skills,the main impact was that students could properly raise objections and accept others' ideas,which would increase the interaction between partners in group cooperative learning.In the aspect of academic motivation,students began to pursue high-quality research results and evaluate their own achievements,continuously improving their performance;Thirdly,the above impacts mainly came from the project research process,group cooperative learning and teachers' guidance in the project-based learning.The findings may help improve students' academic competence and the education of English majors.