Abstract
The purpose of this study is to determine whether students’ academic self-efficacy levels increase through a 20 week of education that is based on the problem-based learning theory and transmitted in an inter-disciplinary manner in Project Children’s University. The project aimed to teach students to learn how to learn. Eventually, students will be life-long learners and gain sustainable learning skills. In order to observe the effect of Project Children’s University, academic self-efficacy levels are measured in terms of “self-efficacy in ability”, “context”, and “education quality domains”. Changes in treatment group students’ academic self-efficacy levels are modeled in growth curve modeling framework throughout three waves. Then, they are compared with those of control group students using Welch’s t test. Results have shown that the levels of academic self-efficacy throughout the research have fallen significantly for the treatment group students. In addition, the levels of self-efficacy in ability of the treatment group students were significantly higher than the levels of the control group students. On the other hand, the levels of context of the treatment group students were significantly lower than the levels of the control group students. In conclusion, Project Children’s University has failed to increase students’ academic self-efficacy levels, but entitled them to understand what academic self-efficacy really means, to socialize, to be self-confident students, and to criticize themselves more rationally.
Highlights
As a concept that gained importance towards the end of 1980s, sustainability is used to mean to protect natural resources and to benefit from resources that are available in the most effective way
The data collection tool was applied to control group students (N = 417) only at the end of the Project
All of the results reported in this study regarding treatment group students are the pooled results of the statistical analyses that are obtained using five imputed datasets separately
Summary
As a concept that gained importance towards the end of 1980s, sustainability is used to mean to protect natural resources and to benefit from resources that are available in the most effective way. Education and learning process has turned into a student and life focused structure in recent years This focus has brought the understanding of lifelong learning into the forefront and becomes the main reason of emergence of the sustainable learning term. There has been a need for a sustainable learning approach in the 21st century in which information and technology intertwined and the diversity of information sources increased (Dede, 2010) [5] This understanding has made the constructivist learning theory, an epistemological theory, even more important. In order to be deemed successful in education systems, students should solve the academic problems, and deal with the problems that they encounter in everyday life and provide solutions to these problems This structural change caused the concept of self-sufficiency to gain importance in the process of education
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