Abstract:
Many secondary science students lack the information and practical abilities needed to plan and make small-scale project that could lead to job opportunities after they graduate from secondary schools. This highlights a significant gap between the teaching of theoretical science and its practical application. Students are insufficiently prepared for the labor market and economic issues when they lack experiential, project-based learning and assessment during their studies, which limits their innovative capacity to employment chances.
The implementation of the project-based assessment (PBA) in advanced level chemistry schools is currently being used as a way of assessing students ‘knowledge and skills. This study explores the perceptions of both students and teachers regarding project-based assessment, the challenges faced in its implementation and the main factors that influence its effectiveness.
By using a mixed method research approach, the interview questions and likert questionnaires were used. A sample of 347 students was obtained from a population of 2616 advanced level chemistry students from four selected schools in Nyarugenge and Rulindo Districts in Rwanda. Furthermore 12 teachers from the mentioned schools participated in the interview and survey. The students and teachers are selected using a purposive sampling method. A thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data while descriptive statistics were used to analyze the frequency distribution of the responses.
It was found that the project-based assessment has various benefits including knowledge and skills retention, application of science in real life, enhancing students’ motivation, creativity, collaboration, innovation and critical thinking. Besides these beneficial merits, however, insufficient materials, teachers’ trainings and limited time allocated for the designed projects were identified as potential drawbacks in the implementation of the PBA. Finally, the current research has addressed potential areas of improvement that could foster the effective implementation of PBA at the school level, decision makers and partner’s levels.
