STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS OF PROJECT BASED LEARNING IN CHEMISTRY

This study aims to identify student perceptions regarding certain aspects such as collaboration, communication and learning in the context of project based learning. These special issues were selected because these are considered to be some of the 21st century skills. The present article aims also to search the effects of project based learning experience on student perceptions. Ninth-grade and tenth-grade students are grouped heterogeneously according to their chemistry test results. Groups carried out a research about a chemistry experiment, documenting information, preparing presentation and making video. They used mostly Google tools for the production of presentation and collaboration with group members. After presentations, data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire survey with Likert scale and a unit test based on questions on the textbook. The findings showed that project based learning is a meaningful method and doing project helped them learning. The increase in their test results supports the finding. Most of the students stated that PBL made them more interested in chemistry. Almost all students stated that project based learning enabled them to more communicate with classmates and they liked to discuss the topics with each other. The experience with project based learning (PBL) has an effect but not significant. (C) 2018 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK