Understanding the Value of Students Doing Projects

Abstract

This investigation focused on building a view of the value of doing projects which emerged from student descriptions of their project work in an innovative high school science and mathematics curriculum. Qualitative coding methods yielded rules to describe student impressions of doing projects. These rules and their instances represent ways of understanding the efforts and achievements of students doing projects. These efforts and achievements are diverse in nature and their assessment cannot be separated from the context of performance, which includes interests, resources, skill at collaboration, and prior knowledge and skill. Five metafunctions are described as a potential beginning point for building an assessment model of student-centered projects. The metafunctions are resourcefulness, reflection, authentic, extension, and connectedness.