Table 6 Visibility of key characteristics and their implementation in practice in the PBL units

1: Driving question

Project has a driving question

0

0

• No schools mentioned ‘driving questions’.

• N = 1 project was technically based around a question,” the subject of how what we do and use affects the environment”, but the question is even referred to as a topic for the unit, rather than an actual solvable question.

Centred around solving a problem

11

8

• None of the projects had a direct mention of ‘solving a problem’ through the project.

• N = 11 projects had a clear reference to an attempt to solve a situation or phenomenon through the project.

• The remaining projects (n = 6, from n = 4 schools) did not have a single problem connecting the various activities.

Socio-scientific issues

11

8

• All central problems were socio-scientific, as they were related to solving environmental issues (for example, acid rain, waste disposal).

Local or familiar learning environments

11

8

• Researching everyday phenomena (n = 7 projects), using family or peers as audience (n = 6), creating an impact on local environment (n = 6), studying local environment (n = 5), visiting local attractions (n = 2) or collaborating with students’ families (n = 2).

• As the locality of learning environments was used as a proxy for the authenticity of the driving question (Hasni et al., 2016), only the 11 problem-centred projects were considered.

2: Learning goals

Practical goals set by teachers

9

9

• Goals with no reference to students’ development; for example, “creating an herb garden”.

Learning goals set by teachers

6

6

• Goals that included a reference to the students’ development: learning related to biology (n = 5 schools), scientific practices (n = 4), social skills (n = 3), other twenty-first century skills (n = 1) and technical skills (n = 1).

• Learning goals related to biology: values (n = 5 schools), content (n = 3) and skills (n = 1).

Practical goals set by students

5

3

• All related to biology (n = 5 projects).

Learning goals set by students

0

0

• –

Learning gains according to teachers

10

6

• Learning biology: mentioned by students from n = 7 schools, by teachers from n = 3 schools.

• Learning social skills: teachers n = 6, students n = 4.

• Other twenty-first century skills: teachers n = 2, students n = 1.

• Scientific practices: teachers n = 2, students n = 0.

• Development of environmental values: students n = 4, teachers n = 2.

• ICT skills: students n = 2, teachers n = 1.

• Personal development (for example, new perspectives and experiences): students from n = 2 schools (in n = 3 projects), teachers n = 0.

Learning gains according to students

11

10

3: Scientific practices (Pedaste et al. 2015)

Asking questions

4

4

• Questions that had an impact on the investigations carried out.

Forming hypotheses

0

0

• N = 0 projects had hypotheses, but n = 8 did experiments that could have included a hypothesis. However, they were considered as exploration due to lack of hypotheses (Pedaste et al., 2015).

Experimentation

0

0

Exploration

14

8

• Research consisted mostly of searching for information and doing experiments.

Interpreting results

14

11

Conclusions

13

11

Presenting results

17

12

• All projects were presented to others at least through the StarT project videos. N = 16 projects described additionally for example, presentations and posters.

Reflection

15

10

• Students’ comments reflecting on at least some aspect of the project.

4: Collaboration

Between students

16

11

• Mostly group work (n = 16) or presenting the work for other students (n = 9).

Between teachers

14

9

• Teachers from the same school (n = 8 schools)

• Teachers from another school (n = 4). NB. Three of these schools participated in the same development programme of a local university, and this university organised the event where collaboration happened.

• No detailed information of how teachers collaborated with each other and how teachers of different subjects made collaboration happen.

With actors from outside of the school

14

9

• The partners were students’ parents (n = 9), universities (n = 5), media (n = 5), museums (n = 5), municipalities or other public agencies (n = 4), local people (n = 3), other experts (n = 3) and organisations (n = 2).

• Collaboration with media: local newspaper wrote about students’ projects.

5: Using technological tools

Technology

17

12

• All studied projects included at least a video of project work.

ICT (information and communication technologies)

15

10

• Commonly available technology at homes and schools.

Scientific technology

6

6

• Technology designed for scientific measurements and observations.

6: Artefact

Concrete creations made by students

17

12

• For example, reports, models, lessons and webpages.

Multiple artefacts answer the same question

6

3

• More than one artefact that aim to reach the same goal by approaching it from different angles.

Multiple unconnected artefacts from separate activities

5

5

• The artefacts were related to the same theme but did not attempt to address a single problem.

One clear artefact

4

3

• In two (2) projects the artefact was simple and in the other two (2) it was a complex technical product that was the result of smaller experiments.

A single larger artefact that

consists of the smaller ones

2

2

• For example, developing the school garden, a webpage on environmental issues.