The effectiveness of project-based online education on self-efficacy and academic engagement of sixth grade elementary students

Traditional teaching methods do not prepare students to live in the 21st century. Students in the 21st century must move beyond the basic knowledge in the subject field and look for more important issues such as acquiring skills. Having self-efficacy skills and creating academic conflict by current students are considered as achallenges of the educationl system. Many top universities in advanced countries consider the training of such students at the level of higher education among their goals. Therefore, it is necessary to examine appropriate teaching methods that improve these two skills in learners and use all the available capacities in online education to improve self-efficacy skills and academic engagement, because teaching strategies are changing with the significant advancement of technology. And education should gradually shift its focus from the physical space of the classroom to virtual environments. Project-based learning is a deep and comprehensive learning approach for teaching and learning in the classroom, and it can be combined with e-learning and be used to achieve basic skills such as self-efficacy and academic engagement. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of project-based e-learning on self-efficacy and academic engagement of the sixth-grade students.

The research method was a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all the sixth-grade students of Savadkoh in the academic year 2019-2019, among whom, 34 ones (17 ones in the experimental group and 17 ones in the control group) were selected as a sample via the available sampling method. Data collection tools included Appleton et al.'s (2006) academic engagement questionnaire and Jing, and Morgan's (1999) academic self-efficacy questionnaire.

 The results showed that there was a clear indication that project-based learning can motivate students to learn and stimulate their self-efficacy and academic engagement for better performance in this field. The findings of the research demonstrated that project-based education in the online environment was generally effective (P<0.05 and F=4.46). In addition, students' academic involvement had a positive effect (P<0.05 and F=7.97).

Considering the positive impact of project-based education in the online environment on the effectiveness and academic engagement of students in this research, as well as the increasing popularity of project-based learning, teachers should shift their teaching approaches to project-based education in order to improve education. One of the requirements of this action is empowering teachers in the field of electronic education system and designing appropriate textbooks for learning skills and project-based education. It is also suggested that teachers give students responsibility for learning and assign them active roles, because through project-based learning, they can understand their learning, present their products that show their learning and effort.