learning outcomes for research project

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Project-Based Learning Research Review

What the research says about aspects of project-based learning ranging from implementation to learning outcomes.

Studies have proven that when implemented well, project-based learning (PBL) can increase retention of content and improve students’ attitudes toward learning, among other benefits. Edutopia’s PBL research review explores the vast body of research on the topic and helps make sense of the results.

What Is Project-Based Learning?

PBL hails from a tradition of pedagogy which asserts that students learn best by experiencing and solving real-world problems. According to researchers ( Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008 ; Thomas, 2000 ), PBL essentially involves the following:

• students learning knowledge to tackle realistic problems as they would be solved in the real world,
• increased student control over his or her learning,
• teachers serving as coaches and facilitators of inquiry and reflection, and
• students (usually, but not always) working in pairs or groups.

Teachers can create real-world problem-solving situations by designing questions and tasks that correspond to two different frameworks of inquiry-based teaching: problem-based learning, which tackles a problem but doesn’t necessarily include a student project, and project-based learning, which involves a complex task and some form of student presentation, and/or students creating an actual product or artifact.

These inquiry-based teaching methods engage students in creating, questioning, and revising knowledge, while developing their skills in critical thinking, collaboration, communication, reasoning, synthesis, and resilience (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008). Although these methods of inquiry-based teaching differ slightly, for simplicity they’re combined in these pages and referred to as project-based learning or PBL.

Learning Outcomes

Studies comparing learning outcomes for students taught via project-based learning versus traditional instruction show that when implemented well, PBL increases long-term retention of content, helps students perform as well as or better than traditional learners in high-stakes tests, improves problem-solving and collaboration skills, and improves students’ attitudes toward learning ( Strobel & van Barneveld, 2009 ; Walker & Leary, 2009 ). PBL can also provide an effective model for whole-school reform ( National Clearinghouse for Comprehensive School Reform, 2004 ; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995 ).

A 2016 MDRC/Lucas Education Research literature review found that the design principles most commonly used in PBL align well with the goals of preparing students for deeper learning, higher-level thinking skills, and intra/interpersonal skills ( Condliffe et al., 2016 ).

Keys to Project-Based Learning Success

Researchers have identified several components that are critical to successful PBL (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Ertmer & Simons, 2005 ; Mergendoller & Thomas, 2005 ; Hung, 2008 ). While project-based learning has been criticized in the past for not being rigorous enough, the following features will greatly improve the chances of a project's success.

• A realistic problem or project that aligns with students' skills and interests, and requires learning clearly defined content and skills (e.g., using rubrics, or exemplars from local professionals and students).
• Structured group work with groups of three to four students, with diverse skill levels and interdependent roles; team rewards; and individual accountability, based on student growth.
• Multi-faceted assessment, with multiple opportunities for students to receive feedback and revise their work (e.g., benchmarks, reflective activities); multiple learning outcomes (e.g., problem-solving, content, collaboration); and presentations that encourage participation and signal social value (e.g. exhibitions, portfolios, performances, reports).
• Participation in a professional learning network, including collaborating and reflecting upon PBL experiences in the classroom with colleagues, and courses in inquiry-based teaching methods.

You will find much greater detail on these four key components, along with step-by-step instructions on how to put them into place, in the next section.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written by Vanessa Vega, with subsequent updates made by the Edutopia staff.

PBL Research Table of Contents:

• Introduction and Learning Outcomes
• Evidence-Based Components of Success
• Best Practices Across Disciplines
• Avoiding Pitfalls
• Annotated Bibliography

• Handbook Archive

Research Project (Learning Outcomes)

Subject EDUC90824 (2015)

Note: This is an archived Handbook entry from 2015.

Contact Us Call: 13 MELB (13 6352)

Download PDF version .

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Creating Learning Outcomes

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A learning outcome is a concise description of what students will learn and how that learning will be assessed. Having clearly articulated learning outcomes can make designing a course, assessing student learning progress, and facilitating learning activities easier and more effective. Learning outcomes can also help students regulate their learning and develop effective study strategies.

Defining the terms

Educational research uses a number of terms for this concept, including learning goals, student learning objectives, session outcomes, and more. 

In alignment with other Stanford resources, we will use learning outcomes as a general term for what students will learn and how that learning will be assessed. This includes both goals and objectives. We will use learning goals to describe general outcomes for an entire course or program. We will use learning objectives when discussing more focused outcomes for specific lessons or activities.

For example, a learning goal might be “By the end of the course, students will be able to develop coherent literary arguments.” 

Whereas a learning objective might be, “By the end of Week 5, students will be able to write a coherent thesis statement supported by at least two pieces of evidence.”

Learning outcomes benefit instructors

Learning outcomes can help instructors in a number of ways by:

• Providing a framework and rationale for making course design decisions about the sequence of topics and instruction, content selection, and so on.
• Communicating to students what they must do to make progress in learning in your course.
• Clarifying your intentions to the teaching team, course guests, and other colleagues.
• Providing a framework for transparent and equitable assessment of student learning. 
• Making outcomes concerning values and beliefs, such as dedication to discipline-specific values, more concrete and assessable.
• Making inclusion and belonging explicit and integral to the course design.

Learning outcomes benefit students 

Clearly, articulated learning outcomes can also help guide and support students in their own learning by:

• Clearly communicating the range of learning students will be expected to acquire and demonstrate.
• Helping learners concentrate on the areas that they need to develop to progress in the course.
• Helping learners monitor their own progress, reflect on the efficacy of their study strategies, and seek out support or better strategies. (See Promoting Student Metacognition for more on this topic.)

Choosing learning outcomes

When writing learning outcomes to represent the aims and practices of a course or even a discipline, consider:

• What is the big idea that you hope students will still retain from the course even years later?
• What are the most important concepts, ideas, methods, theories, approaches, and perspectives of your field that students should learn?
• What are the most important skills that students should develop and be able to apply in and after your course?
• What would students need to have mastered earlier in the course or program in order to make progress later or in subsequent courses?
• What skills and knowledge would students need if they were to pursue a career in this field or contribute to communities impacted by this field?
• What values, attitudes, and habits of mind and affect would students need if they are to pursue a career in this field or contribute to communities impacted by this field?
• How can the learning outcomes span a wide range of skills that serve students with differing levels of preparation?
• How can learning outcomes offer a range of assessment types to serve a diverse student population?

Use learning taxonomies to inform learning outcomes

Learning taxonomies describe how a learner’s understanding develops from simple to complex when learning different subjects or tasks. They are useful here for identifying any foundational skills or knowledge needed for more complex learning, and for matching observable behaviors to different types of learning.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical model and includes three domains of learning: cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. In this model, learning occurs hierarchically, as each skill builds on previous skills towards increasingly sophisticated learning. For example, in the cognitive domain, learning begins with remembering, then understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and lastly creating. 

Taxonomy of Significant Learning

The Taxonomy of Significant Learning is a non-hierarchical and integral model of learning. It describes learning as a meaningful, holistic, and integral network. This model has six intersecting domains: knowledge, application, integration, human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn. 

See our resource on Learning Taxonomies and Verbs for a summary of these two learning taxonomies.

How to write learning outcomes

Writing learning outcomes can be made easier by using the ABCD approach. This strategy identifies four key elements of an effective learning outcome:

Consider the following example: Students (audience) , will be able to label and describe (behavior) , given a diagram of the eye at the end of this lesson (condition) , all seven extraocular muscles, and at least two of their actions (degree) .

Audience 

Define who will achieve the outcome. Outcomes commonly include phrases such as “After completing this course, students will be able to...” or “After completing this activity, workshop participants will be able to...”

Keeping your audience in mind as you develop your learning outcomes helps ensure that they are relevant and centered on what learners must achieve. Make sure the learning outcome is focused on the student’s behavior, not the instructor’s. If the outcome describes an instructional activity or topic, then it is too focused on the instructor’s intentions and not the students.

Try to understand your audience so that you can better align your learning goals or objectives to meet their needs. While every group of students is different, certain generalizations about their prior knowledge, goals, motivation, and so on might be made based on course prerequisites, their year-level, or majors. 

Use action verbs to describe observable behavior that demonstrates mastery of the goal or objective. Depending on the skill, knowledge, or domain of the behavior, you might select a different action verb. Particularly for learning objectives which are more specific, avoid verbs that are vague or difficult to assess, such as “understand”, “appreciate”, or “know”.

The behavior usually completes the audience phrase “students will be able to…” with a specific action verb that learners can interpret without ambiguity. We recommend beginning learning goals with a phrase that makes it clear that students are expected to actively contribute to progressing towards a learning goal. For example, “through active engagement and completion of course activities, students will be able to…”

Example action verbs

Consider the following examples of verbs from different learning domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy . Generally speaking, items listed at the top under each domain are more suitable for advanced students, and items listed at the bottom are more suitable for novice or beginning students. Using verbs and associated skills from all three domains, regardless of your discipline area, can benefit students by diversifying the learning experience. 

For the cognitive domain:

• Create, investigate, design
• Evaluate, argue, support
• Analyze, compare, examine
• Solve, operate, demonstrate
• Describe, locate, translate
• Remember, define, duplicate, list

For the psychomotor domain:

• Invent, create, manage
• Articulate, construct, solve
• Complete, calibrate, control
• Build, perform, execute
• Copy, repeat, follow

For the affective domain:

• Internalize, propose, conclude
• Organize, systematize, integrate
• Justify, share, persuade
• Respond, contribute, cooperate
• Capture, pursue, consume

Often we develop broad goals first, then break them down into specific objectives. For example, if a goal is for learners to be able to compose an essay, break it down into several objectives, such as forming a clear thesis statement, coherently ordering points, following a salient argument, gathering and quoting evidence effectively, and so on.

State the conditions, if any, under which the behavior is to be performed. Consider the following conditions:

• Equipment or tools, such as using a laboratory device or a specified software application.
• Situation or environment, such as in a clinical setting, or during a performance.
• Materials or format, such as written text, a slide presentation, or using specified materials.

The level of specificity for conditions within an objective may vary and should be appropriate to the broader goals. If the conditions are implicit or understood as part of the classroom or assessment situation, it may not be necessary to state them. 

When articulating the conditions in learning outcomes, ensure that they are sensorily and financially accessible to all students.

Degree 

Degree states the standard or criterion for acceptable performance. The degree should be related to real-world expectations: what standard should the learner meet to be judged proficient? For example:

• With 90% accuracy
• Within 10 minutes
• Suitable for submission to an edited journal
• Obtain a valid solution
• In a 100-word paragraph

The specificity of the degree will vary. You might take into consideration professional standards, what a student would need to succeed in subsequent courses in a series, or what is required by you as the instructor to accurately assess learning when determining the degree. Where the degree is easy to measure (such as pass or fail) or accuracy is not required, it may be omitted.

Characteristics of effective learning outcomes

The acronym SMART is useful for remembering the characteristics of an effective learning outcome.

• Specific : clear and distinct from others.
• Measurable : identifies observable student action.
• Attainable : suitably challenging for students in the course.
• Related : connected to other objectives and student interests.
• Time-bound : likely to be achieved and keep students on task within the given time frame.

Examples of effective learning outcomes

These examples generally follow the ABCD and SMART guidelines. 

Arts and Humanities

Learning goals.

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to apply critical terms and methodology in completing a written literary analysis of a selected literary work.

At the end of the course, students will be able to demonstrate oral competence with the French language in pronunciation, vocabulary, and language fluency in a 10 minute in-person interview with a member of the teaching team.

Learning objectives

After completing lessons 1 through 5, given images of specific works of art, students will be able to identify the artist, artistic period, and describe their historical, social, and philosophical contexts in a two-page written essay.

By the end of this course, students will be able to describe the steps in planning a research study, including identifying and formulating relevant theories, generating alternative solutions and strategies, and application to a hypothetical case in a written research proposal.

At the end of this lesson, given a diagram of the eye, students will be able to label all of the extraocular muscles and describe at least two of their actions.

Using chemical datasets gathered at the end of the first lab unit, students will be able to create plots and trend lines of that data in Excel and make quantitative predictions about future experiments.

• How to Write Learning Goals , Evaluation and Research, Student Affairs (2021).
• SMART Guidelines , Center for Teaching and Learning (2020).
• Learning Taxonomies and Verbs , Center for Teaching and Learning (2021).

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Learning Outcomes for Teaching Research Skills

• Library Instruction
• Learning Outcomes for…

The   Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education  was developed by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) to help students understand the complex and changing landscape of Information Literacy (IL) skills that will benefit them as lifelong learners. The six "frames" below can be used over a student's entire academic career -- in the first-year, milestone, capstone, and graduate courses -- to teach students to find, use, evaluate, and produce information effectively and ethically.

Authority is Constructed and Contextual  -  Information is evaluated in part based on the author’s credibility and is applied in context.  

Information Creation is a Process  -  Information exists in different formats and should be evaluated to determine its’ usefulness.

Information has Value  -  Legal and socioeconomic interests influence information gathering and distribution.

Research as Inquiry  -  Questions beget questions in an iterative process.

Scholarship is a Conversation  -  Research matures over time through sustained discourse between scholars.

Searching is a Strategic Exploration  -  Finding information requires flexibility and inquisitiveness.

Authority is Constructed and Contextual

University Library's suggested learning outcomes (on graduation) :

Identify authoritative information sources in any form.

Evaluate the authority of information from various sources (e.g., peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers, website, etc.).*

Acknowledge their own authority in certain contexts.

Recognize that authority or credibility is contextual in relation to time, discipline, methodology, and other factors.*

Information Creation is a Process

 where information exists in different formats, which has an impact on how it is used and shared. The underlying processes of creation and the final product should be critically evaluated to determine the usefulness of the information.  (Outcomes marked with an asterisk * have been identified as General Education Learning Outcomes, by the time a student has completed approximately 30 credit hours.)

Articulate the capabilities and constraints of various processes of information creation.

Critique the presentation of information within disciplines.

Articulate traditional and emerging research processes. (e.g., literature review, statistical analysis, etc.).

Distinguish between format and method of access.

Select sources that best meet an information need based on the audience, context, and purpose of various formats.*

Information Has Value

Information has value as a commodity, a means of education, a means of influence, and a means of negotiating and understanding the world. Legal and socioeconomic interests influence information production and dissemination.  

Manage personal and academic information online with a knowledge of the commodification of that information.

Recognize that intellectual property is legally and socially constructed and varies by discipline and culture.

Cite sources through proper attribution.*

Identify publication practices and their related implications for how information is accessed and valued (e.g., open movement, digital divide).

Research as Inquiry

Research is an iterative process that depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers prompt additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field. (Outcomes marked with an asterisk * have been identified as General Education Learning Outcomes, by the time a student has completed approximately 30 credit hours.)

University Library's suggested learning outcomes (on graduation) : 

Formulate questions for research of an appropriate scope, based on information gaps or by reexamining existing information.*

Select research methodology(ies) based on need, circumstance, and type of inquiry.

Organize information systematically (e.g., citation management software).

Synthesize information from multiple sources and a variety of perspectives.*

Scholarship is a Conversation

Scholarship is a conversation consisting of sustained discourse within communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals, with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of a variety of perspectives and interpretations. (Outcomes marked with an asterisk * have been identified as General Education Learning Outcomes, by the time a student has completed approximately 30 credit hours.)

Contribute to the ongoing scholarly conversation at an appropriate level.

Identify the contribution that information sources make within a discipline or conversation.*

Describe the ways that communication systems privilege some perspectives and present barriers to others.*

Summarize the changes in scholarly perspective over time on a particular topic within a specific discipline.

Recognize that a given scholarly work may not represent the only or even the majority perspective on the issue.*

Searching is a Strategic Exploration

Searching is a strategic exploration encompassing inquiry, discovery, and flexibility. Searching means understanding how information is organized, identifying relevant sources, and how to access those sources. (Outcomes marked with an asterisk * have been identified as General Education Learning Outcomes, by the time a student has completed approximately 30 credit hours.)

Identify information need and potential sources of information (e.g., scholars, organizations, governments, industries).*

Design searches strategically, considering and selecting systems to search and evaluate results.*

Refine information need and search strategies based on results.*

Identify how information systems are organized in order to access relevant information.

Apply different searching language types (e.g., controlled vocabulary, keywords)