Students in a collaborative, project-based engineering design course gained declarative knowledge but not procedural or principled knowledge or personal interest¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 2 studies · 1 review r2, 1 theoretical r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 2008 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? A special-issue introduction reports that Dinsmore and colleagues, studying students in a collaborative, project-based engineering design course, found significant effects for declarative knowledge but not for procedural or principled knowledge, nor for personal interest in engineering; the summary gives neither the direction of the effect nor the design. → Loyens 2008

q2 i? Contrary to expectations, Dinsmore and colleagues found some gain in declarative knowledge from a project-based engineering design course, while procedural and principled knowledge and personal interest did not change. → Remy M. J. P. Rikers 2008

Evidence¶

Loyens 2008¶

Loyens, S. M. M., & Gijbels, D. (2008). Understanding the effects of constructivist learning environments: introducing a multi-directional approach. Instructional Science, 36, 351–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-008-9059-4

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

The special-issue introduction's summary of the Dinsmore, Alexander, and Loughlin study of students' participation in a collaborative, project-based engineering design course and their domain knowledge, interests, and strategic processing. Outcomes diverged by knowledge type; the summary does not state the direction of the declarative-knowledge effect or how it was established, and prints no effect sizes.

"Significant effects were found for students’ declarative knowledge, but not for students’ procedural or principled knowledge, nor for students’ personal interest in the domain of engineering"

Remy M. J. P. Rikers 2008¶

Remy M. J. P. Rikers, Tamara van Gog, Fred Paas. (2008). The effects of constructivist learning environments: a commentary. Instr Sci (2008) 36:463–467. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-008-9067-4

q2 · i? · review · r2

The commentary reports Dinsmore and colleagues' study using the Model of Domain Learning to examine effects of a collaborative, project-based engineering design course on interests and declarative, procedural, and principled knowledge. Only declarative knowledge improved.

"Contrary to their expectations, the authors show that although there is some gain in declarative knowledge, other types of knowledge and personal interest do not change during the course."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Students in interdisciplinary design studio courses reported high authentic motivation stemming from the problems rather than grades — related
• Knowledge creation occurred in neither fixed nor opportunistic collaboration groups; interactions were mostly knowledge sharing — related
• Learners invest more effort in tasks they perceive as interesting, personally important, or useful to their future goals. — related
• Course-based emphasis on reframing and stakeholder inquiry shifts pre-service teachers toward informed-designer stances — related
• Collaborative critique-and-redesign instruction shifts students from a value-free view of objectivity toward a procedural one — related
• Both agent-based model and visualization video conditions produce comparable gains in declarative nanoscience knowledge, with no Group × Time interaction — related
• Empirical studies of constructivist learning environments do not always show the expected learning outcomes — a broader claim this one bears on