Teacher Satisfaction with the Project-Based Learning Methodology in Technical Architecture at the Universitat Jaume I

Abstract

The teaching methodologies of the Universitat Jaume I (UJI) Degree of Technical Architecture (TA) have been innovated since it began in 2005, even before the Bologna process, when all European Higher Education followed a common European strategy. Innovation is based on the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology, which has been implemented into academic years 1, 2 and 3. At the beginning, PBL was implemented year by year according to teachers' interest. It was a voluntary process in which teachers chose to follow it, or not. When the new TA curriculum was approved in 2009 by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA), the following teaching methodologies were implemented: Lecture, Laboratory, Project and PBL. Since then, PBL has become a requirement to be implemented into all the subjects, and the new situation affects more teachers than before. Previous surveys focused on student satisfaction in order to know and improve student difficulties. Now the time has come to analyse teacher satisfaction after adjusting to changes. Teachers form part of the project and their opinion is important to improve the learning process. The research methodology is based on questionnaires that address the teachers who are responsible and have formed part of PBL lectures. Apart from this enquiry, it is also necessary to know the opinion of the coordinators and degree top managers who will evaluate the methodology's progress in terms of integrating contents, collaborative work, academic results, etc. This paper presents the results of the research work on analysing teacher satisfaction after its 4-year implementation into TA for: time invested in preparation, time invested in correcting and supervising, level of difficulty to adapt contents, student comprehension, coordination, teachers' evaluation, academic results, etc. The result of this research will help plan new actions to improve teacher collaboration, teacher coordination, project contents, and the general integration of the PBL methodology into the TA curriculum.