Effectiveness of project-based learning on students’ achievement and motivation towards English in an EFL environment

Abstract EN

This study aims to detect the effectiveness of Project-Based Learning (PBL) on students' academic achievement and motivation towards English in EFL environment.

Identify the year in which the Ministry of Education adopted PBL to be used at schools.

The Ministry of Education in Palestine has asked teachers to implement this new method of teaching and learning in their classrooms.

Moreover, Educational supervisors claim that PBL has the power to improve students' achievement, attitude, motivation, critical thinking, self-confidence, and active learning as students investigate real-world issues in a collaborative environment.

This is a mixed research study utilizing both qualitative and quantitative instruments to collect data.

69 ninth gradersfrom two different classes in Ibrahim Abu-Dabat Secondary Girls’ School participated in the study.

In the quantitative phase, a pre-and post-test was used to find the effect of PBL on the students' achievement.

In the qualitative phase, two semi-structured interviews were used to assess students' motivation towards English lessons and to investigate the challenges that teachers and students face while implementing PBL.

Results showed that there is no statistically significant difference between the achievement scores of the experimental group and the control group.

However, the results indicated that the experimental group students outperformed the control group students in reading and writing skills.

In addition, the interview results revealed that the use of PBL affects students' engagement in a positive way and improves their motivation towards learning English.

Furthermore, few challenges were also reported to provide sufficient information about the difficulties that teachers and students may encounter while using PBL.

The study concluded that PBL could be an effective means of teaching English as a foreign language.