Consider the review’s approach to finding studies for inclusion.
PjBL and PBL are usually described as active, student-centred methods of instruction that encourage students to work in collaborative groups on real-world questions or challenges to promote the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills, while teachers act as facilitators of learning...
On January 23th 2020 the first author (MF) performed an electronic search on the Web of Science, PsycInfo, and ERIC entering the terms “(project based OR problem based) AND (learning OR intervention OR approach OR instruction)” into the Topic field...
The studies were only included if they met the following criteria: c1) the aim was to evaluate the effect of PjBL on content knowledge; c2) they followed a pre-post design with control group; c3) the target sample comprised students from kindergarten to grade 6; c4) they were written in English; and c5) they were peer-reviewed.
To avoid being excluded on the grounds of topic irrelevance, a study only needed to:
Use the terms “project based” or “problem based” as well as one of the terms “learning,” “intervention,” “approach,” or “instruction” in the topic field.
Strike the reviewers as attempting to “evaluate the effect of PjBL on content knowledge,” presumably by fitting the definition they give in the second paragraph of their introduction.
Note in particular that, by the definition they give, only some amount or form of encouraging and facilitating of any type of collaborative, “real-world” “questions or challenges” is required to fit their definition of PjBL. This is an extremely expansive definition.
You yourself note that the most obvious reason this review finds mixed results is that, in your words, “the studies weren’t very well done.” I think this is correct, but we also can chalk up the problem to:
The reviewers, for having such an open-ended definition of PjBL (perhaps by necessity if there aren’t many studies available)
The field itself, for the same definitional inadequacies when it’s in their power to try and do better when designing their studies.
Probably extreme resource constraints in designing and executing PjBL experiments.
Consider the review’s approach to finding studies for inclusion.
To avoid being excluded on the grounds of topic irrelevance, a study only needed to:
Use the terms “project based” or “problem based” as well as one of the terms “learning,” “intervention,” “approach,” or “instruction” in the topic field.
Strike the reviewers as attempting to “evaluate the effect of PjBL on content knowledge,” presumably by fitting the definition they give in the second paragraph of their introduction.
Note in particular that, by the definition they give, only some amount or form of encouraging and facilitating of any type of collaborative, “real-world” “questions or challenges” is required to fit their definition of PjBL. This is an extremely expansive definition.
You yourself note that the most obvious reason this review finds mixed results is that, in your words, “the studies weren’t very well done.” I think this is correct, but we also can chalk up the problem to:
The reviewers, for having such an open-ended definition of PjBL (perhaps by necessity if there aren’t many studies available)
The field itself, for the same definitional inadequacies when it’s in their power to try and do better when designing their studies.
Probably extreme resource constraints in designing and executing PjBL experiments.