PBL Research Summary: Studies Validate Project-Based Learning

Teamwork, technology, and hands-on work are important elements of project-based learning.

Credit: Edutopia

A growing body of academic research supports the use of project-based learning in schools as a way to engage students, cut absenteeism, boost cooperative learning skills, and improve test scores. Those benefits are enhanced when technology is used in a meaningful way in the projects. Following are synopses of a range of studies on project-based learning:

British Math Study

A three-year 1997 study [1] ( To view this study, you must be a registered user on the Edweek site. Registration is free. [2]) of two British secondary schools -- one that used open-ended projects and one that used more traditional, direct instruction -- found striking differences in understanding and standardized achievement data in mathematics.

The study by Jo Boaler, now associate professor of education at Stanford University, found that students at the project-based school did better than those at the more traditional school both on math problems requiring analytical or conceptual thought and on those considered rote, that is, those requiring memory of a rule or formula. Three times as many students at the project-based school received the top grade achievable on the national examination in math.

Challenge 2000

In a five-year study, researchers at SRI International found that technology-using students in Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project classrooms outperformed non-technology-using students in communication skills, teamwork, and problem solving. The Center for Learning in Technology researchers, led by Bill Penuel, found increased student engagement, greater responsibility for learning, increased peer collaboration skills, and greater achievement gains by students who had been labeled low achievers.

The project conducted a performance assessment designed to measure students' skills in constructing a presentation aimed at a particular audience. Students from Multimedia Project classrooms outperformed comparison classrooms in all three areas scored by researchers and teachers: student content, attention to audience, and design. The Multimedia Project involves completing one to four interdisciplinary multimedia projects a year that integrate real-world issues and practices.

Cognition and Technology Group

A 1992 study of 700 students from eleven school districts in Tennessee found that students doing projects using videotaped problems over a three-week period performed better in a number of academic areas later in the school year. The study, by the Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt University, examined student competence in basic math, word problems, planning capabilities, attitudes, and teacher feedback. Students who had experience in the project work performed better in all categories. The study appeared in Educational Psychologist, 27 (3): 291-315.

Co-nect

A 1999 study by the Center for Research in Educational Policy [3] at the University of Memphis and University of Tennessee at Knoxville found that students using the Co-nect [4] program, which emphasizes project-based learning and technology, improved test scores in all subject areas over a two-year period on the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System. The Co-nect schools outperformed control schools by 26 percent.

Does It Compute?

Analyzing data from the math portion of the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress test given to students nationwide, Educational Testing Services researcher Harold Wenglinsky found that the effectiveness of computers in the classroom depended on how they were used. In his report, "Does It Compute? The Relationship Between Educational Technology and Student Achievement in Mathematics," [5] Wenglinsky found that if computers were used for drill or practice, they typically had a negative effect on student achievement. If they were used with real-world applications, such as spreadsheets, or to simulate relationships or changing variables, student achievement increased. Data were drawn from the samples of 6,227 fourth graders and 7,146 eighth graders.

Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound

Three elementary schools in Dubuque, Iowa, showed significant test score gains after incorporating the Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound [6] (ELOB) program. At ELOB schools, students conduct three-to-six-month-long studies of a single topic with an emphasis on learning by doing. After two years in the program, two of the three schools advanced from "well below average" to "well above the district average" on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. One elementary school raised its average score from the 39th to the 80th percentile. After four years in the program, student scores were "above the district average in almost every area." Separate analyses showed similar test score gains in ELOB programs in Denver, Boston, and Portland, Maine.

Laptops

Since 1996, ROCKMAN ET AL, an independent research firm in San Francisco, California, has studied the impact of widespread use of laptop technology on teaching and learning. The focus of the firm's multiyear studies has been on dozens of public and private K-12 schools participating in a pilot laptop program sponsored jointly by the Microsoft and Toshiba corporations. Through both observation and feedback from laptop-using teachers and students, researchers have documented a shift from lectures and other teacher-centered forms of delivery to lessons that are more collaborative and project-oriented. Teachers, researchers note, become facilitators in project-oriented classrooms, with students increasingly assuming the role of directors of their own learning.

In a 1998 report, researchers note that three-fourths of the teachers who participated in a ROCKMAN ET AL survey reported that project-based instruction had increased since the introduction of the laptops in their classrooms. Among the many reported benefits of this project-based approach to learning are greater student engagement, improved analytic abilities, and a greater likelihood to apply high-order thinking skills.

Laptop-using students also performed better on a ROCKMAN ET AL-administered writing examination. The research firm did not, however, identify significant differences in the standardized test scores of laptop-using students. Researchers offered two possible explanations for the lack of significant improvement in this area: 1. Standardized tests are not designed to reflect the types of learning that laptops support. 2. Because the students had been using their laptops for less than two years, it might have been too soon to see noticeable gains in areas that are covered by standardized tests.

Successful School Restructuring

A five-year study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers found that structural school reform works only under certain conditions:

1. Students must be engaged in activities that build on prior knowledge and allow them to apply that knowledge to new situations.

2. Students must use disciplined inquiry.

3. School activities must have value beyond school. In their report, "Successful School Restructuring," the researchers at Wisconsin's Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools found that even innovative school improvements, such as portfolio assessment and shared decision making, are less effective without accompanying meaningful student assignments based on deep inquiry. Reseachers analyzed data from more than 1,500 elementary, middle, and high schools and conducted field studies in forty-four schools in sixteen states between 1990 and 1995.

Union City, New Jersey School District

The Center for Children and Technology at the Education Development Center, Inc., monitored a two-year technology trial [7] that was first implemented in the district in September of 1993. The study found that after multimedia technology was used to support project-based learning, eighth graders in Union City, New Jersey, scored 27 percentage points higher than students from other urban and special needs school districts on statewide tests in reading, math, and writing achievement. The study also found a decrease in absenteeism and an increase in students transferring to the school. Four years earlier, the state had been considering a takeover because Union City failed in forty of fifty-two indicators of school effectiveness.