Sub Research Question Two

SRQ2: What are the students’ perception of the Problem-Based Learning implementation?

Sub Research Question two of this study was especially concerned with the students’ perception on the PBL implementation in the CNC Lathe and Milling programming courses at the GMI and with this question, the researcher was trying to discover the students’ point of view on the PBL implementation in order to get a clear picture of its implementation at GMI.

Results of Students’ Perception on PBL from the Quantitative Data The feedback is presented in Table 4-11 in Appendix L-2 and was obtained from the students of semester three (N = 47), the results of the listed items which represented the students’ perception on PBL in CNC programming courses were: 49.9% of the students ‘agreed’ and 35.2% ‘strongly agreed’ with the statement. However, 0.4% to 0.8% of students ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ respectively with the statement and 13.7% of students were ‘undecided’. Thus the ten items scored mean (M) was above 4.00, except for item number 10 having a score of M = 3.85 and overall M = 4.8.

The responses shown in Table 4-12 in Appendix L-2 was obtained from the students of semester four (N = 85) and the results showed that the listed items which represented the students’ perception on PBL in CNC programming courses were:

52.7% of the students ‘agreed’ and 30.2% ‘strongly agreed’ with the statement.

However, 2.8% to 0.5% of students ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’ respectively with the statement and 13.7% of students were ‘undecided. Thus the eight items scored mean (M) was above 4.00, except for items number 8, 10 and 11 having a score lower than M =4.00 and overall M = 4.09.

The results above strongly indicates that majority of students (85.1% from semester three and 82.9% from semester four) have a good perception on the PBL approach and only less than 3% of students have negative perception on PBL when it was implemented in two CNC programming courses (lathe and milling).

The independent samples t-test was performed to determine whether a statistically significant difference in perception (questionnaire items 1 to 11) existed between groups of semester three and four students. The data were analysed by the parametric Levene's Test with equality of variances assumed in (Table 4-14).

Table 4-11 and Table 4-12: Perception on PBL: Percentages and Frequencies of Students’

Responses of Likert-Scale Questionnaire.

See Appendix L-2. Perception on PBL: Percentages and Frequencies of Students’

Responses of Likert-Scale Questionnaire.

Figure 4-5: Box and whisker plot of semester three and four students’ perception on PBL.

A Box-and-whisker plot (Figure 4-5) displays the data distribution on questionnaire’s items 1 to 11 about the perception of students in semester three and four in PBL. The Box-and-whisker plot demonstrates outliers with a small circle of

“out” values for both groups. The outliers seem to be more in a group of semester four than semester three that at the low end 1 (Strongly disagree) and 2 (Strongly agree) of the scale. The Box-and-whisker plot indicates that the students of semester four have a more negative perception on PBL than students of semester three.

Students 2, 81 and 95 were having quite a negative perception on PBL with three or more questionnaire items were at mark 2 (disagree) and 1 (Strongly disagree).

Overall, the box plots illustrate the data distribution are skewed to the right-hand side with the observations are concentrated at Mark 4 (Agree) of the scale. The data set suggested that majority of the subjects have a positive perception on PBL.

Table 4-13: The summary of the Independent samples t-test compares the difference means of semester three and four students’ perception on PBL.

Semester _{N Mean} Std. Deviation

1-PBL enhanced application of my prior knowledge.

3 47 4.19 .680

4 85 4.12 .822

2-PBL helped me to develop myself to be a self-directed learner.

3 47 4.13 .679

4 85 4.13 .753

3-PBL stimulated my thinking process. 3 47 4.32 .629

10-I learnt better during group interactions in the PBL.

3 47 3.85 .932

4 85 3.88 .762

11-PBL taught me learn how to learn. 3 47 4.04 .779

4 85 3.99 .809

Table 4-13 and Table 4-14 show the results of the independent samples t-test (equal variances assumed) on the perception of PBL among students of semester three and four. Table 4-14 displays Sig. (2-tailed) p > 0.05 for all questionnaire items (1 to11).

These results indicate that there were no statistically significant differences between students of semester three and four on the perception about PBL. Therefore, the hypothesis two: There is no difference in perception on the PBL implementation in the CNC programming course between students of semester three and four is not rejected. The results suggest that the students’ perception in PBL were not influenced by the level of students in the semester.

Table 4-14: Independent samples t-test evaluates the significance of the different means of semester three and four students’ perception on PBL.

Results of Students’ Perception on PBL from the Qualitative Data

The responses of the semester three and four students to the group interview revealed the following perception on PBL. Students found communication and teamwork as the most positive aspects of their PBL experience. This was affirmed by the fact that several of the feedback to a simple question, “What do you feel/think about PBL?” were remarks such as:

“This helps improve communication,”

“Helpful because it can create teamwork spirit and encourage the students to think outside the box,”

“Yes, PBL is very helpful in thinking critically to solve problems and to help work in groups,”

“We feel that Problem-based learning is good to work in a team because we can give ideas to solve problems,”

“Problem-based learning is an exciting way of learning approach and useful,”

“Problem-based learning is a good way of learning by discussion and interaction in the group,”

“Yes good, the good thing about Problem-based learning, it makes us work in a team, seek for information and doing presentation on the solution to the problem,”

“Very good because we share ideas, learn new knowledge from each other members in the group,” and

“Yes good and enjoyable, the discussion in a group can generate good ideas to solve the problem and improve our communication skills”.

Other aspects which students found also to be positive in their PBL experience were remarks such as:

“Stimulating individuals mind for not to depend on the notes given but to search more information on the subject,”

“We think it can help students to solve a critical problem,”

“Great type of learning, improve self-knowledge and self-confidence,”

“PBL is good because it opens students’ mind that students need to think good to solve problems,”

“Problem-based learning is a fun way of learning and it helps us to think and work on the problem ourselves, some of the information that we cannot get in the class,”

“Problem-based learning has made us understand better the subject at hand because we experience the gain of knowledge,” and

“Great type of learning approach, improve knowledge and self-confidence.”

The responses of the semester three and four students to the group interview also revealed some students’ negative perception on PBL. Students found time constraint and many other PBL assignments as the most negative aspects of their PBL experience. This was supported by several of the students’ comments such as:

“PBL consumes much time and we cannot get any hands-on skills (technical) with it,”

“we still need the TTO (Instructor) to teach us as time constraint and PBL is not suitable when we have very limited time, and we are overloaded with another assignment,”

“PBL consumes much time and we can’t get any skills with it,”

“But we have many assignment and time constraints,”

“But it consumes time and a bit burden” and

“PBL burdens students because we have many PBL assignment given by other TTO at the same time”.

A couple of students found other negative issues in their PBL experience were noted such as:

“In my opinion, PBL is a burden to me because the subject matter was not taught from the beginning,” and

“Sometimes we feel hard to find appropriate resources to the problem”

(Appendix K-1 consists of all of students’ responses to the questionnaire).