Correlation Study Between Online Interaction Of Project-based Learning Groups And Their Project Products

The 21 st century is a new era when the cultivation of soft skills becomes more and more important,so education reforms are carried out by domestic and foreign schools in order to conform to the new standard of talent cultivation,which emphasizes the cultivation of the 21 st century soft skills,including team spirit,cooperation ability,academic ability and communication skills.Project-based learning(hereinafter PBL),as a new learning mode and method,has been widely applied in teaching practice of higher education for facilitating students’ comprehensive ability through completing projects cooperatively.Interaction in PBL groups becomes vital and essential for the completion and success of PBL.And with the development of Internet,online interaction has become a new trend.Therefore,the studies about PBL and online interaction have been paid more attention by the scholars at home and abroad.However,few studies investigated online interaction in PBL by means of social network analysis,and even fewer studies explored the correlation between online interaction of PBL groups and their project products.Considering the research gap,the author analyzes the current situation of online interaction in PBL groups and the correlation between online interaction of PBL groups and their project products on the basis of related theoretical and practical research both at home and abroad.Hence,the following two research questions are addressed:(1)What is the current situation of the PBL groups’ online interaction from the aspects of density,distance,degree centrality and betweenness centrality?(2)What is the correlation between the four aspects of the PBL groups’ online interaction and their project products?The research objects of this study were 20 PBL groups consisting of 94non-English major freshmen who participated in Project-based Innovate Curriculum in Chongqing University for one semester.Under the guidance and requirement of the teachers,the 20 PBL groups established 20 QQ groups respectively as the platform of their online interaction.And at the end of the semester the 20 PBL groups submitted their project products.The author joined the 20 QQ groups as the observer to record the interaction among members in PBL groups for the whole semester.And through the method of social network analysis,the author investigated the current situation of the 20 PBL groups’ online interaction from such aspects as density,distance,degree centralityand betweenness centrality.Furthermore,the author conducted multiple regression analysis to analyze the correlation between the four aspects of online interaction of the PBL groups and their project products.Through quantitative analysis,the author came to the following conclusions:(1)There existed differences among the four aspects of online interaction in the 20 PBL groups.Members in most groups were closely related,but different members within the groups played different roles and were of different importance.The online interactions of some PBL groups were imbalanced,for there existed the phenomenon that one or two members controlled the group interaction.(2)There were positive correlations between the project products and the aspects of density and distance,but negative correlations existed between the project products and the aspects of degree centrality and betweenness centrality.Among the four aspects,density had the greatest impact on their project products,followed by distance,betweenness centrality and degree centrality.