Challenges encountered by second year students in the documentary project at university of languages and international studies

The results have shown that students faced a number of challenges while conducting the Documentary project, regarding project objectives; project tasks; teacher‟s instructions ; group me

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA SINH VIÊN NĂM THỨ HAI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHI THỰC

HIỆN DỰ ÁN DOCUMENTARY

Giáo viên hướng dẫn : ThS Trần Thị Hiếu Thủy

HÀ NỘI – 2017

ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Bich Ngoc, class 13E1, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor,

Ms Trần Thị Hiếu Thủy (M.A.) for her continuous support of my study, for her patience and encouragement She was always willing to answer me whenever I had questions about my research Without her guidance, I could not be able to complete this thesis

I would also like to thank the teachers in the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education for the knowledge and skills they have given me so that I could conduct this research

Next, I would like to acknowledge the participants of the study, including sixty-seven students who agreed to do the questionnaires and eight students who enthusiastically participated in the interviews It is impossible for me to

do this research without their tremendous help

I must take this opportunity to express my gratitude to my parents, my brother and sister-in-law for their unfailing support and love throughout my years of study, and especially, through the process of writing this research I would also like to thank all my beloved friends who always give me encouragement when I need it most

Finally, my sincere thanks go to all people who directly or indirectly lent

me their hand during the completion of this study

ABSTRACT

Challenges that students encountered in project-based learning has been mentioned by a number of researchers in their implementation studies (Krajcik et al., 1998; Stauffacher et al., 2006; Harmer and Stokes, 2014) Nevertheless, there

is limited empirical research directly addressing this matter in English language teaching (Harmer and Stokes, 2014) The shortage of evidence on the challenges that students encounter in project-based learning leaves a gap that needs to be filled Focusing on the context of the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies (FELTE, ULIS), this paper attempts to investigate the challenges that students faced, their responses to the challenges and some suggestions they made for further improvement in a project called the Documentary project

For the accomplishment of these purposes, a survey was conducted on 67 second-year students in the Honors Program, among whom 8 students were selected for semi-structured interviews

The results have shown that students faced a number of challenges while conducting the Documentary project, regarding project objectives; project tasks; teacher‟s instructions ; group members‟ knowledge/ability; group work during implementation; assessment and feedback of project outcome The challenges concerning teacher‟s instruction, group work and assessment were the most prominent With each type of challenges, students had different responses Students suggested that teachers should support them by providing more frequent and detailed instructions, specifying the criteria in the marking rubrics and giving more valuable feedback

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

I Figures:

Figure 4.1 A summary of students‟ perception of challenges

Figure 4.2 A summary of students‟ perception of challenges

Figure 4.3 Students' perception of teachers‟ instructions about the

Figure 4.4 Students' perception of teachers‟ instruction frequency 22

Figure 4.5 A summary of students' perception of teachers‟

Figure 4.6 A summary of students' perception of the challenges

II Tables:

Table 4.1 A summary of students' perception of the challenges

Table 4.2 A summary of students' perception of the challenges

related to assessment and feedback of project outcome 28

Table 4.3 A summary of students' responses to the challenges

Table 4.4 A summary of students' responses to the challenges

Table 4.5 A summary of students' responses to the challenges

Table 4.6 A summary of students' responses to the challenges

Table 4.7 A summary of students' responses to the challenges

Table 4.8 A summary of students' responses to the challenges

related assessment and feedback of project outcome 36

Table 4.9 A summary of students' suggestions on support from

III Abbreviations:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACCEPTANCE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND ABBREVIATIONS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problem 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.3 Significance of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Organization 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Project-Based Learning: 4

2.1.1 Definition of Project-Based Learning 4

2.1.2 Features of Project-Based Learning 5

2.1.3 Assessment in Project-Based Learning 6

2.1.4 Challenges encountered by students undertaking PBL 8

2.1.4.1 Group work: 8

2.1.4.2 Instructions and scaffolding 8

2.1.4.3 Assessment 9

2.1.4.4 Weight of work 9

2.1.4.5 Objectives 9

2.2 Documentary film 10

2.2.1 Definition 10

2.2.2 Use of Documentary films in second language (L2) education 10

2.2.3 The Documentary Project in FELTE, ULIS 10

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 13

3.1 Setting 13

3.2 Participants 13

3.3 Data collection 14

3.3.1 Questionnaire 14

3.3.2 Interviews 15

3.4 Data analysis 15

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 17

4.1 Presentation of major findings 17

4.1.1 Research question #1: As perceived by students, what challenges did they encounter in the Documentary project? 17

4.1.2 Research question #2: In what ways did students respond to these challenges? 30

4.1.3 Research question #3: As perceived by students, what support should teachers have given them to overcome these challenges? 36

4.2 Discussion of findings 38

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 41

5.1 Summary of findings 41

5.2 Implications 42

5.3 Limitations of the research 45

5.4 Suggestions for further studies 45

REFERENCES 47

APPENDICES 50

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter focuses on addressing the problem, the aims and objectives, the significance, the scope and the organization of this study

1.1 Statement of the problem

Project-based learning (PBL) is a learner-centered model which is no stranger to educators all over the world It has been proved by many studies to have positive effects on the learning process (Mapes, 2009; Beckett, 2002; Krajcik et al., 1998) Nevertheless, PBL also poses challenges to students It is vital that the challenges faced by students while undertaking PBL be clearly identified so that PBL could be implemented effectively Some researchers such

as Krajcik et al (1998); Edelson, Gordon, and Pea (1999); Stauffacher et al., (2006) and Harmer and Stokes (2014) have mentioned challenges that students encountered in their studies; nevertheless, it just accounted for a minor part in their studies There is limited empirical research directly addressing students‟ challenges in project-based learning Furthermore, most research is on project-based science subjects; there has not been much attention on difficulties of English language learners The shortage of evidence on this matter leaves a gap that needs to be filled

In Vietnam, although project-based learning has gradually gained popularity, it has not been widely used to teach English (Nguyen, 2011); it is still

a new model to many people Therefore, many students may struggle to adapt with PBL Teachers may not recognize the problems that students face or even wrongly conceive them For these reasons, it is imperative that a study on challenges that students encountered be conducted

This study was carried out with second-year Honors program students at FELTE, ULIS The project in which challenges that students encountered was studied was the Documentary project Because this project is new and complex,

it is suitable for investigating the difficulties that students experienced

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

Overall, the aims of this study were to fill the gap of the research world and respond to the quest for research on students‟ difficulties in PBL by studying second-year students at FELTE, ULIS, in the Documentary project This study sook to discover more about the challenges that students faced according to their perception, and their responses to them Based on the expectations of students about teachers‟ support, some implications were proposed The purpose of this study is to find answers to the following research questions:

1 As perceived by students, what challenges did they encounter in the Documentary project?

2 In what ways did students respond to these challenges?

3 As perceived by students, what support should teachers have given them

to overcome these challenges?

1.3 Significance of the study

Once having been completed, the research would benefit students, teachers and future researchers of the Documentary project

For students, especially future second-year students of Honors Program in ULIS, this study would inform them of common challenges they may encounter

so that they can have better preparation before doing any projects

For teachers of Honors Program in ULIS, this research would provide evidence of students‟ difficulties on which they can consider when implementing the project For course designers, based on the findings of this study, they can make necessary adjustment to the content of Documentary project or to the way

it is conducted so that it could be more suitable to students‟ needs

Regarding the research world, this is one of the first studies on the based learning undertaking challenges of English learners in Vietnam Accordingly, the study could become a useful source of reference for similar studies on this project in different context The results of this study could also be used for subsequent intervention research to improve the effectiveness of the project in this study and projects of PBL in general

project-1.4 Scope of the study

This study was conducted to investigate the challenges faced by year students in the Documentary project as perceived by students In addition, the researcher looked into some representative responses of students while encountering those challenges Support from teachers as suggested by students was also studied in this research

second-It is noteworthy that the samples of the study were second year Honors Program students majored in both English language teacher education and Interpretation/Translation in ULIS, VNU The study was carried out during the second semester of the school year 2016-2017

1.5 Organization

The paper contains five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1 – Introduction – provides an overview of the study

Chapter 2 – Literature review - provides the background of the study, including definitions of key concepts and related studies

Chapter 3 – Methodology - describes the participants and instruments of the study, as well as the procedure to collect and analyze data

Chapter 4 – Results and discussions - presents, analyzes and discusses the findings that the researchers found out from the data collected according to the research questions

Chapter 5 – Conclusion – summarizes the main findings, several recommendations concerning the research topic, the limitations of the research,

as well as some suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the background of the study by presenting the related work of other researchers The definitions of key concepts can also be found here

2.1 Project-Based Learning:

2.1.1 Definition of Project-Based Learning

The formation of project-based learning is believed to start from the educator, philosopher John Dewey He believed that instead of being taught a specific way to meet the academic outcomes, learners could deepen their learning

by examining real-world situations (Condliffe, Visher, Bangser, Drohojowska & Saco, 2015; Grant, 2002) Nevertheless, it was William Heard Kilpatrick who was considered the founder of PBL Based on the theoretical foundation of Dewey, Kilpatrick developed an approach to K-12 education called the “project method”, the first form of project-based learning, in which he emphasized the importance of student interest and the focus of educational content on project work (Kalabzová, 2015) Since then, PBL has gained popularity and become a familiar model to promote learning in modern education

Many researchers have proposed their own definitions of project-based learning According to Grant (2002), project-based learning is an instructional model that considers learners as the center of learning process and provides them with opportunities to thoroughly study worthy topics After investigating topics, students are required to create products that represent and support their learning, which will improve their autonomy and maintain their interest and responsibility

for learning Thomas (2000) focused more on defining projects as he stated in his

research that “Projects are complex tasks, based on challenging questions or problems, that involve students in design, problem-solving, decision making, or investigative activities; give students the opportunity to work relatively autonomously over extended periods of time; and culminate in realistic products

or presentations” (p.1) Krajcik and Blumenfeld (2006) compared learners of project-based learning with scientists because they also investigate significant

real-world problems Despite the diversity of these definitions, two components

of project-based learning are always emphasized: a driving question or problem and the creation of artifacts (Adderley et al.; Blumenfeld et al., cited in Grant 2009) This research adopted the view of Thomas on the definition of PBL, for it was able to present all fundamental features of PBL

2.1.2 Features of Project-Based Learning

From his definition of PBL, Thomas (2000) proposed the question “What must a project have in order to be considered an instance of PBL?” and built a set

of criteria to help educators identify project-based learning from simply doing projects The criteria includes: centrality, driving question, constructive investigations, autonomy, and realism (Thomas, 2000)

 Centrality: Project must be the primary means of teaching of the teachers

Students obtain knowledge and skills through project If a project is used to provide illustrations, additional practice to prior lessons or to enrich students‟ knowledge outside the curriculum, that project is not an example of PBL

 Driving question: Projects must propose a question or a problem that

make students approach the targeted knowledge

 Constructive investigations: Projects require students to carry out an

investigation which leads to the transformation and construction of new knowledge

 Autonomy: PBL projects require students to have their own voice and

choice, to work under no supervision and to take responsibility for their own products

 Realism: Projects are realistic and practical In PBL, students need to

provide feasible solutions to authentic problems or questions

Apart from those elements, the inclusion of collaboration, creation of artifacts (Krajcik & Shin, 2014; Krajcik & Blumenfield, 2006) and students and teachers‟ roles should also be considered when evaluating projects in PBL

 Collaboration: Students are arranged to work in groups so that they

could exchange ideas, learn from the knowledge and experience of others Teachers and community members (i.e experts on the fields that students are

studying) also participate in collaborative activities with students to solve the driving question (Krajcik & Blumenfield, 2006) In PBL, students‟ responsibility and roles in group work are focused According to Bender (2012), “as students become adept in PBL instructional experiences, they will also become seasoned team players who are used to planning activities as a team, specifying roles for various team members, working together to solve problems, and offering appropriate and helpful peer evaluations of each other‟s performance” (p 52)

 New roles of teacher and students:

o Students‟ role: PBL is a student-centered model in which learners actively participate in the construction of knowledge (Condliffe, Visher, Bangser, Drohojowska & Saco, 2015) Instead of learning individually, students need to work as collaborators in a group to solve a driving question and produce

an artifact representing their learning process They are also expected to engage

in making choices, managing work and time, and gaining experience

o Teacher‟s role: Teachers are course designers and curriculum makers (Parker et al., 2013) As stated by Darling-Hammond et al., unlike traditional teaching approach where teachers are responsible for transmitting knowledge to students, teachers in PBL play the role of facilitators to provide students with guidance, stimulate students‟ thinking and give constructive feedback (as cited

in Condliffe, Visher, Bangser, Drohojowska & Saco, 2015)

 Creation of artifacts: Projects require students to produce artifacts

which represent what they have learnt The artifacts or products indicate the result of students‟ investigation to find solutions to the driving questions (Blumenfeld et al., 1991) The artifacts are shared with the class, and more

ideally, with public

2.1.3 Assessment in Project-Based Learning

Assessment is indispensable to any teaching method It provides teachers with information of students‟ performance and also affects students‟ learning strategies Regarding PBL, many researchers claimed that sole traditional assessment is not effective in measuring the level of students‟ understanding and skills (Hellström, Nilsson & Olsson, 2009; Van den Bergh et al., 2006)

Therefore, a variety of assessment methods in diverse combinations have been used Van den Bergh et al (2006) introduced 5 different assessment modes in PBL and investigated students‟ perception of their pros and cons The result is presented in the following table

In some projects, assessment is based on the group output, a presentation and a group or individual report (Nation, 2006) Frank and Barzilai (2004) suggested that participation of students in weekly group meetings should also be assessed (as cited in Condliffe, Visher, Bangser, Drohojowska & Saco 2015) Ayas and Zeniuk (2001) stressed the importance of reflection for learning Tal et

al (as cited in Hellström, Nilsson & Olsson 2009) described a multi-dimensional assessment system which includes:

o Collaborative assessment with the participation of community experts, teachers and students

o The use of multiple assessment tools: “studies, project product exhibition, product portfolios and self-assessment”(p.2)

o Both individual and group assessment

There are diverse types of assessment could be used in PBL, yet it is advisable that the assessment should be adapted to the learning environment to yield the best results

2.1.4 Challenges encountered by students undertaking PBL

Basing on the study of Harmer and Stokes (2014), Stauffacher et al (2006),

Achilles and Hoover (1996), common challenges faced by students in PBL can be

categorized in the following groups

2.1.4.1 Group work:

Collaboration within a group has been reported in the studies of Stauffacher

et al (2006), Meehan and Thomas (2006), and Hung (2011) as the biggest challenge in project work An implementation research of Achilles and Hoover (1996) showed that students did not collaborate effectively; students reported to have problems with communication with group members According to Gibbes and Carson (2013), division of labor in group work could also be problematic because members might have different amount of knowledge and ability, which led to “unequal workload, unproductive groups, and stress” In some studied groups, students felt that their group members were irresponsible and dependent

on others just to get through projects Blumenfeld et al (1991) believed that this challenge could be avoided by careful consideration of components of a group and individual needs of each member

2.1.4.2 Instructions and scaffolding

Traditionally, the teacher is the center of learning and work management, but when PBL is adopted, this responsibility is transferred to students Teachers then become a facilitator, an instructor who provides guidance and support to students According to Bell (2010), students need considerable scaffolding at the beginning of the course, then it can be reduced as students gain more confidence However, in many cases, the importance of instructions is overlooked Brundiers and Wiek (2013) in their review of PBL in institutions in six countries discovered that degree programs hardly included preparatory sessions or courses to assist students in coping with the requirements of project work (as cited in Harmer & Stokes 2014) Consequently, students can be filled

with uncertainty and surrounded by pressures from many sides (Stauffacher et al., 2006) Boha (2010) believed that the fundamental elements to the success of

a project were the introduction at the beginning and the frequent instructions

2.1.4.3 Assessment

It is reported that the lack of clarity in assessment hinders students‟ understanding of the way they are assessed (Blumenfeld et al., 1991) For students who are familiar with the traditional assessment, it would be a challenge

to understand not only the procedure of those methods but also how to take advantages of them to develop suitable learning strategies The communication between students and teachers is also important in assessment; however, teachers may not spend enough time to share with students information about their learning According to Stauffacher et al (2006), students often underestimated their progress due to lack of communication with teachers regarding the aims and objectives of the project

2.1.4.4 Weight of work

As stated in the study of Van den Berg et al (2006), workload was the first challenge students think of when they participated in project-based learning course The students explained that there were concurrent courses in which lecturers also gave assignments or exercises, so the amount of work became

“overwhelming” (p 354) Another reason is that the projects contained many small tasks which together could take a lot of time and effort After investigating

a case of eight students joined in project based science classrooms, Krajcik et al (1998) also found that students had difficulty in managing time Students‟ request for more time is not necessarily negative as it shows their engagement to the project (Joyce et al., 2013); however, it is necessary that students have good time management due to the time limit of each project

2.1.4.5 Objectives

Less frequent challenges reported in the literature concern with objectives

of the project According to Atrie et al (2008), the problems with objectives that students often face are that they are too vast, too narrow, or too ambitious, which

makes students unable to build suitable learning strategies There should be a fine balance in the objectives

2.2 Documentary film

2.2.1 Definition

According to Oxford Dictionary, documentary means “A film or television

or radio program that provides a factual report on a particular subject.” In agreement with this definition, Aufderheide (2007) stated that real life was the raw material for documentaries Nevertheless, according to documentary filmmaker John Grierson, documentary should not be seen as “merely observational” type of film, but it should be “the creative treatment of actuality” (as cited in Moris, 1987)

2.2.2 Use of Documentary films in second language (L2) education

In order to acquire targeted second language, students need to be exposed to language input Documentary is used in teaching second language for this purpose This authentic audiovisual medium can be utilized in a variety of ways

to assist student language acquisition Lestiyanawati (2011) in his research studied the use of documentary films in BBC VCD to enhance students‟ ability in writing report Shea (2008) believed that documentary films were ideal for teaching rhetoric in English as a result of three of its elements: nonfiction, visual culture and argument

Another approach to documentary films in teaching L2 is documentary project in which students are involved in making a documentary film to support their learning In his reading course, Bernardo (2011) divided students into groups to produce a short documentary film covering national and global issues about books and reading The use of documentary projects was believed to stimulate technology application, collaboration, higher order thinking skills and awareness of controversial issues among students

2.2.3 The Documentary Project in FELTE, ULIS

The Documentary Project is a compulsory assignment included in English 3B* course in sophomore honors program at Faculty of English Language

Teacher Education (FELTE), University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) This project possesses all the aforementioned features of project-based learning Firstly, in this course, listening and speaking skills are mainly taught via this project The driving question of this project focuses on how students could synthesize and assess authentic recorded and broadcast audio material, design and facilitate a lesson based on those material This project requires students to find and investigate the videos to make a documentary film and facilitate it Both group work and individual work are included At the end of the project, students are required to create products which are a documentary film and a lesson

The objectives of this project is “to develop and assess students‟ ability to follow, synthesize and assess authentic recorded and broadcast audio material of topics on and beyond students‟ fields, develop and deliver clear, well structured presentation on complex subjects in the form of a documentary film using appropriate technology” (3B* Course syllabus, 2016) Students work in group of three to four people The project is normally carried out in the first semester of second year

According to the Course Syllabus 3B* the procedure is specified as below:

 Week 3: Select a topic for the documentary film under the assigned themes and ask the teacher for approval

 Week 5: Collect 3 to 5 authentic videos and extract some suitable parts

 Week 7: Write the transcript for the extracts and submit it to the teacher

 Week 9: produce an original script in which one half is self-composed and narrated by the members and the other half are the collected extracts

 Week 11: develop a complete documentary film

 Week 13: design listening comprehension exercises based on their documentary film

 Week 14 or 15: facilitate a 45-minute session in class with their documentary films and exercises

Students are assessed according to the following marking rubrics (3B* Course syllabus, 2016)

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In the previous chapter, the work of other researchers on the topic was reviewed, providing an overall framework and a rationale for this study In this chapter, the practical side of this study is going to be discussed, revealing the setting, the participants, the instruments, and the data collection and analysis methods

3.1 Setting

This study took place at Honors Program, Faculty of English language Teacher Education (FELTE) of the University of Languages and International studies (ULIS), during the second semester of 2016-2017 academic year Since the Documentary project was included in English 3B* course, there have been two generations of students experienced it However, in order to ensure the highest possible reliability, this study only aims at the current second year students who carried out this project in the most recent first semester

The Honors Program currently has four second-year classes: E1, E2, E3

and E21 Although these four classes have different career orientations (E1, E2

and E3 are classes of English Language Teacher Education, E21 is a class for students who intend to become translators or interpreters), they have quite the same English 3B* syllabus because all of them are learning general English skills this year

3.2 Participants

The researcher made use of “purposive sampling” (Cohen et al., 2007, p.115) to select the four current second-year classes of the Honors Program to do the survey because this study focused on the students who did the Documentary project, and to increase the reliability, the students who most recently carried out this project were chosen The total number of students in these classes is 73 students Due to personal reasons, 6 students could not join in the survey, so

there were only 67 students involved in the questionnaire

Then, the researcher chose randomly two students from each class to join the interviews After collecting the questionnaires from each class, the researcher assigned each questionnaire a number, starting from number 1 (the max number depends on the number of students participating in the survey in each class) Afterwards, the researcher used the web-based random number generator on https://www.random.org/ to get two numbers which corresponded with the numbers

on the questionnaires After identifying the students who did those questionnaires, the researcher contacted them and got their acceptance for the interviews

Overall, the researcher distributed 67 questionnaires to students of four classes, and conducted interviews with 8 randomly chosen students The data collection process is summarized in the following chart

2 students

E2

17 students

2 students

E3

19 students

2 students

E21

18 students

2 students

Figure 3.1 – Data collection process

2) a section including questions about students‟ perceptions of their challenges, their responses and their expectations for teachers‟ support in the Documentary project The categories of challenges in the literature review were broken down into smaller categories for the convenience of survey and analysis,

including challenges related to objectives (1), project tasks (2), teacher’s

instructions (3), group members’ knowledge/ability (4), group work during implementation (5), assessment and feedback of project outcome (6)

Questionnaire items such as 5-point Likert scales were utilized for students to rate these challenges Students were also asked to add other challenges if available Some common responses of students towards the challenges were provided in the form of checkboxes items

Regarding students‟ expectations of support teachers should give, ended items were used because this type of data was too individual and complex

open-to be covered by close-ended items

From the data collected from closed-ended items of the questionnaire, the percentage of students agreed on their encounter of each challenge was calculated These results revealed which cha llenges students in Honors program faced in Documentary project, and among those challenges which ones were the most and the least significant

Research question #2: In what ways do students respond to these challenges? The data for this question was gathered from the checkbox items Then, the number of times each response was chosen was calculated and compared among each category to explore the common responses in each type of challenges Research question #3: As perceived by students, what support should

teachers have given them to overcome these challenges?

Data of this question was also classified to identify general expectations in each category The wishes of the students were presented in the form of a table

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the results of this research on challenges that year students at University of Languages and International Studies faced in the Documentary project Most of this chapter is descriptive statistical analysis of the quantitative data collected from the survey The results from the semi-structured interviews are also woven into the analysis to provide a deeper view on the challenges and students‟ expectations Throughout the analysis, the eight students that were interviewed will be referred to using code names (Sx) at their request

second-of confidentiality All the data that have been collected will be analyzed according to seven categories which are created basing on the study of Harmer and Stokes (2014) and the nature of a project

The first part of this chapter seeks the answer for the research question “As perceived by students, what challenges do they encounter in the Documentary project?” The second part is concerned with the question “In what ways do students respond to these challenges?”, and the third part reveals some students‟ expectations of the support they would like to receive while doing this project Afterwards, the results of the study are further discussed to identify the most significant challenges and methods to overcome them

4.1 Presentation of major findings

4.1.1 Research question #1: As perceived by students, what challenges did they encounter in the Documentary project?

a Challenges related to project objectives

In order to identify which challenges the majority of students encountered and which ones they did not, 25 questions were created and divided into categories The first category is “Challenges related to project objectives”, which aims at investigating the difficulties students faced while referring to the objectives to build the learning strategies The following figure shows respondents‟ degrees of agreement to the three statements under this category

Figure 4.1 - A summary of students' perception of the challenges

related to project objectives

It can be seen from the chart that the minority of students perceived the objectives of this project as a source of challenges in item 1 and 2, which could

be evidenced by two features The percentage of students agreed and strongly agreed of item 1 and 2 are less than 20%, whereas the percentage of students who disagreed were considerably higher, at 40% and 51% respectively The opinions

of respondents about the third item vary most wildly among three items Although the percentage of students who disagreed with the statement is the highest, the differences between the figures for disagree, neutral and agree were not significant Furthermore, there were 4 students, accounted for 6%, strongly agreed that the objectives were overambitious

The participants in the interviews followed the most popular opinion S2 said that “I think the objectives were fine, but I don‟t think we lacked these skills before we did this project” S7 also believed that the objectives were not overambitious, but she pointed out one unsuitable point about “watching TV and films” “It is not closely related to the project It should not be here”, she said Nevertheless, most of the interviewees admitted that they did not look back at the objectives after completing the project to see what they had achieved, so they were

1 Objectives of the project were too board

2 Objectives of the project were too narrow

3 Objectives of the project were overambitious

Students' perception of the challenges related to project

objectives

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

unsure their feasibility Notably, many interviewees were under the impression that none of their skills had improved after doing this project This could be the reason why there was a variation in opinions of respondents on this matter

b Challenges related to project tasks

In the literature review, weight of work was regarded to be one of the major factors that cause difficulties to students in project-based learning The grounds

of this factor mostly come from the design of the project tasks With an attempt

to check the suitability of the tasks of the Documentary Project, the researcher asked for students‟ views on the quantity, the difficulty level and the allocation

of time for these tasks, using the five point scale Their answers could be demonstrated in the chart below

From the chart, it is clear that respondents most strongly agreed with item 4 among the three items 55% of students believed that the project had too many small tasks S6 said that besides the tasks written on the guidelines, they had to learn how to use film maker software and came up with activities for the facilitation Regarding the difficulty level of the tasks, the majority of students either disagreed or kept a neutral feeling towards them, which is evidenced by the figures 43% and 34 % respectively Explaining for this choice, S1 said ”I

4 The projects contained many small tasks

5 The tasks of the project were too difficult

6 The deadlines for the tasks of this

project were close to each others

Students' perception of the challenges related to project tasks

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Figure 4.2 - A summary of students' perception of the challenges

related to project tasks

think the tasks were quite simple There were many but they were simple We just found the clips, replaced some parts with our voices, then showed the video.”

In item 6, a significant number of students (55%) participating in the survey

perceived the deadlines for these tasks as not close to each others by choosing

„disagree‟ and „strongly disagree‟ When being interviewed on this matter, S1 said:

There were deadlines every 2 weeks, which was enough time for us I think

a good point in this project is that the workload is divided into many weeks

so we could not leave the work until the end to do

S5 also believed that the deadlines had been distributed quite sparsely However, she was not in the same mind with S1 about workload division She thought that the workload was divided into too many small tasks to be checked,

so there were too many unnecessary deadlines “There should be only 2 deadlines: one we have to submit all material and one we have to do the facilitation”, she said

During the interviews, another challenge of the students was explored The students did not think the listening facilitation was useful Firstly, they found doing listening exercises based on a video full of their friends voice-overs frustrating and ineffective They did not understand how their listening skills could improve by that means Furthermore, the students in the interpretation oriented class thought that designing listening exercises and facilitating them had little to do with their major, so they did not benefit much from this activity

Overall, the workload of this project did not cause many difficulties to students Most students reported that there were too many small tasks, but they were not difficult, and the deadlines were not closely distributed Nevertheless, many students had a hard time seeing the practical value of the listening facilitation Some students suggested a change in the procedure of the project

c Challenges related to teachers’ instructions

In project-based learning, the roles of teacher and students were different from those in traditional teaching methods As discussed in the literature review, teachers in PBL plays the part of instructors and facilitators; therefore, the timely and useful instructions of teachers during a project of PBL are truly valuable This category aims at covering the challenges concerned teachers‟ instructions that students faced, using the following items:

Item 7: Teachers‟ instructions about the project at the beginning did not give you a clear idea of what to do

Item 8: Teachers‟ instructions were not given frequently during project implementation

Item 9: You were not guided on how to select, synthesize and assess authentic audio material

Item 10: You were not guided on how to use appropriate technology to make the film

Item 11: You were not guided on how to do the listening facilitation

The survey results of these items are presented in the charts below

With regard to item 7, the majority of students did not have any difficulty in understanding teachers‟ instructions at the beginning of the course They were generally clear about what they needed to do in that project Nevertheless, about

a quarter of the surveyed students had a contrast view, which should not be ignored Their reasons could be partly explained via interviews S1 admitted that:

At the beginning of the course, our teacher did read the guidelines for us and they were just the same as those in the course guide, so not many of us paid attentions We did not know why but we misunderstood that we could

Students' perception of teachers’ instructions about the project at

the beginning of the course

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Figure 4.3 - Students' perception of teachers’ instructions about the project at the

beginning of the course

film some parts by ourselves We came up with the topics, found the videos, then one day, we reported our progress to the teacher and she said that we could not film anything by ourselves, just find the videos on the Internet, join them, then do the voice-overs

Another interviewed student who was in the same class with S1, but not in the same group, had a similar misunderstanding (she did not know that S1 had the same misunderstanding) What surprised the researcher was S3, from a different class, said her teacher told them that they could film half of the video by themselves and find the other half on the Internet (the researcher did not mention the misunderstanding of students in the other class before that) S6 confirmed that her teacher also allowed her class to film some parts by themselves The official guidelines do not mention anything about filming Through this incident,

it is clear that teachers should be aware of parts of the guidelines that could be confusing to explain more clearly to students right at the beginning of the course

The respondents were also asked about teachers‟ instruction frequency The results reveal that there was a variation in opinions The percentage of students choosing disagree, neutral and agree was not significantly different Additionally, the item was strongly disagreed by 12% of the students and strongly agreed by 5% The answers of the interviewees were also diverse While S2 and S5 stated that their teachers gave them comments and instructions every two week when

Figure 4.4 - Students' perception of teachers’ instruction frequency

they submitted a part of their project, S2 and S8 shared that their teachers only gave instructions when they asked

Studying the guidelines, the researcher noticed that in order to conduct this

project well, students would need to know three elements including:

o how to select, synthesize and assess authentic audio material

o how to use appropriate technology to make the film

o how to do the listening facilitation

Although students needed to employ their autonomy in project-based learning, it was necessary that teachers provide them with basic knowledge or instructions about these skills to facilitate their learning Therefore, item 9, 10, and 11 were included to check if students had any difficulties in receiving those instructions The results are shown in the chart below

It is noticeable that among the three items, the percentage of students confirmed that they were guided how to use appropriate technology to make the film was the highest (54%) In contrast, the survey results of item 9 and 11 reveal that over 40% of participants agreed that they were not guided how to do the mentioned tasks Regarding the technology to make the film, half of the

9 You were not guided on how to select, synthesize

and assess authentic audio material

10 You were not guided on how to use appropriate

technology to make the film

11 You were not guided on how to do the listening

facilitation

Students' perception of teachers’ instructions on basic

elements of the project

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Figure 4.5 – A summary of students' perception of teachers’ instructions on basic

elements of the project

interviewed students said that their teachers had invited some senior students to come and introduced some software that they could use to make the film Some other students were not instructed and they did struggle a little What the respondents seemed to struggle more were the other two elements Firstly, about authentic audio materials, most students reported that their teachers did not

explain clearly what ‘authentic materials’ means S1 said that:

Finding authentic sources of videos was the most difficult We had a very vague idea of authentic sources Teacher only said that we should find videos from reliable websites, but there was no clear instructions

S7 shared that her teacher had not emphasize the authentic materials, so they had ended up finding videos of Asian students talking about their topic It had been too late to change the videos so they had used them anyway S2 also

believed that teachers needed to emphasize the 'authentic audio materials’

because the listening objectives would be meaningless without them They were the sources for students to improve listening skills in this project

About the listening facilitation, most interviewed students were in the 43 percent of student who agreed that they had not been given instructions on this part Some students admitted not asking the teacher because they had been given some small design exercises like that by another teacher However, they still regarded the exercises that they had designed in this project as “primitive” or

“instinctive” S4 considered her group‟s listening facilitation a failure She asserted that she had not been instructed how to design the exercises and how to conduct a lesson in class With hindsight, she said “This semester we are learning Tutoring, and we are shown how to design questions Looking back from now, I think that our listening facilitation in the Documentary project was terrible” Unlike others, S5 did receive instructions how to facilitate listening exercises, but they were given while the teacher were giving feedback to other groups

d Challenges related to group members knowledge/abilities

The knowledge and abilities of group members could be a hindrance to some people Item 12, 13 and 14 would help the researcher find out whether the knowledge and abilities of students were enough to do this project or not

As depicted in the chart, the majority of students believed that their group members had sufficient English language skills for this project It could be explained that the surveyed class are in Honors Program, so their English level is relatively high Item 14 was also disagreed and strongly disagreed by a significant proportion of students (about 55%) On the other hand, opinions were more diverse in item 13 33% respondents disagreed that some members lacked team-work abilities, whereas 28% students agreed with the statement

e Challenges related to group work

According to Stauffacher et al (2006), group work is the most challenging factor in project-based learning; therefore, it is impossible to exclude this category while studying about the challenges students encountered in a project The researcher presented students with six common difficulties that they might face while collaborating with each others The results are demonstrated in the following table

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly agree

Figure 4.6 – A summary of students' perception of the challenges related to group

members’ knowledge/abilities

Strongly disagree (%)

Disagree (%)

Neutral (%)

Agree (%)

Strongly agree (%)

15. There were dominating

group members 13 39 27 16 4

16. Some members did not

contribute to the group work to

their full potential

17. Some members prioritized

their personal goals over

common goals of the group

18. Some members did not

follow the deadlines the group

had set

19. Group members had

conflicting schedules 6 18 25 45 6

20. Group members had a clash

of opinions concerning the

project

From Table 1, it is noticeable that item 15, 17 and 20 have the same percentage of students chose to disagree with the statements, and that is also the most popular opinion among these items On the other hand, students had a tendency to experience the challenges stated in 16, 18 and 19 Over 50% of respondents admitted that their group had problems with unequal contribution, conflicting schedules and deadline adherence Two out of three problems are related to time management, which suggests that this is a prominent difficulty to these second-year students

Most of the students who were interviewed admitted that the deadline adherence problem resulted from their laziness They had the tendency to delay work until the last minute, especially S3 and S8 because their teachers did not follow the deadlines in the course guide and just required the final products About conflicting schedule challenge, S5 shared that her group members were busy with either their part time jobs or extra-curricular activities, so it was very difficult for them to gather to discuss about the assignment They mostly worked online via Facebook

Table 4.1 – A summary of students' perception of the challenges related

to group work

Regarding the challenge of unequal contribution, S7 said that it was a matter of personality rather than ability Some members in her group were irresponsible with the mutual work or negligent in doing their own share, whereas there were some meticulous members who would have to correct the work of careless members

f Challenges related to assessment and feedback of project outcome

Traditionally, students would receive the score after doing a project with a vague understanding of why they get that score Since project-based learning employs performance-based assessment, students have a chance to know what they need to do to get high scores and what they need to improve after finishing the project However, the literature has previously revealed that students have difficulties in understanding the way they are assessed in project-based learning either because the assessment methods are new to them or because the assessment tools are not effective enough In the specific situation of second-year students in the Honors Program, performance-based assessment is by no means new to them as they have done many assignments using this type of assessment since their first year Therefore, this research would focus on students‟ perception about the challenges they faced concerning the effectiveness of assessment and feedback In this category, five items were presented to students The results were shown in the following table

According to the guidelines the main assessment tool in this project is the marking rubrics and the feedback sources are from teacher and possibly the marking rubrics It was apparent from this table that the challenges related to the marking rubrics were encountered by many students Almost 60 percent of the respondents were in agreement that the marking rubrics were not specific

When being asked about the marking rubrics, most interviewees said that they were too general and confusing S6 pointed out that this marking rubrics did not show the connection between students‟ performance and the mark given They did not specify how well the students should be to get what point; as a result, the points given could easily be subjective About the components of this marking rubrics, S4 stated that she found some criteria unclear and unreasonable such as body language, fluency and exercise results She said:

Regarding the marking rubrics, I don’t know why there is body language Maybe it is assessed when we do the facilitation, but I still think it is not significant I don’t understand whether fluency is assessed through the video or the facilitation […] I don’t know why the results of the listening exercises are also counted to the final score because in fact no one took them back after we did it And even if they had taken them back and counted the points, we would have exchanged the answer keys in advance anyway

Strongly disagree

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

agree

21. The marking rubrics were not

22. The result from the marking

rubrics did not help you identify

what you need to improve

23. Teachers‟ feedback did not help

you identify what you need to

Table 4.2 – A summary of students' perception of the challenges related to

assessment and feedback of project outcome (%)

S7 and S1 had the same confusion over these criteria S1 believed that there should be a separation between the marking rubrics for the video and the marking rubrics for the listening facilitation

According to the table, half of the students agreed that the result from the marking rubrics did not help them identify what they need to improve On the other hand, over 40 percent of the respondents disagreed with the statement in item 23 about teachers‟ feedback Evidently, teachers‟ feedback seemed to be more helpful to these students than the marking rubrics However, some surveyed students wrote on the questionnaire that a challenge they faced by not listed was

“teacher‟s feedback was not given frequently”

Via the interviews, it was clear why they did not think the results from the marking rubrics were useful All of the students said that they did not receive the their personal marking sheet Only when the second semester started did they receive the score, and it came with no further explanation They did not know why or how they got that score S1 said her group‟s score was lower than their expectation, but she never knew why because she had received neither the marking sheet nor the feedback from the teacher In different cases, S3 and S7 were able to receive teacher‟s feedback, though not frequently, and they did find

it helpful in identifying the parts that they needed to improve

On studying of the project guide, the researcher noticed that the students were assessed solely by their teacher According to Tal et al (as cited in Hellström, Nilsson & Olsson 2009), assessment in PBL should include the use of multiple assessment tools to increase the objectivity and help students have a broader view of what they need to improve Therefore, the researcher included item 24 and 25 to see whether students perceived the shortage of peer assessment and self assessment, two common assessment tools of PBL, as a hindrance

Generally, students either agreed or felt uncertain about this matter With regard

to self assessment, the opinion chosen by the largest number of students was

„neutral‟; nevertheless, there were quite a few students agreed and strongly agreed with this challenge (32.84% and 5.97% of the total number) The

percentage of students regarded the unavailability of peer assessment was a

challenge accounted for approximately 42 percent

S4 shared that “While we was watching our friends‟ videos, we found quite

a few mistakes in their pronunciation, intonation or word choices, but there was

no section for us to comment on that” She also thought that it would be more

objective if her peers were involved in the assessment

Collected data reveals that second year students were more likely to

encounter challenges related to teachers‟ instructions, group work, assessment

and feedback in the Documentary project

4.1.2 Research question #2: In what ways did students respond to these challenges?

This research question depends on the responses about challenges perceived

by students in the previous question It aims at exploring the common ways in

which students addressed the challenges reported in the first part The number of

students chose the option „I did not face this challenge‟ was roughly the same as

the number of students chose „disagree‟ and „strongly disagree‟ in the previous

question, so they will not be discussed in this question The number of responses

are presented in the form of table and further analyzed in the following part

a Challenges related to project objectives

Statements

Work out the solutions

by myself

Seek for advices and help from

my friends

Report the challenges to teachers and ask them for advices

Ignore the challenges and keep doing the project

I did not face this challenge

Table 4.3 – A summary of students' responses to the challenges

related to project objectives