The effects of project-based tasks on international baccalaureate diploma programme students’ writing skills

Abstract

This exploratory case study aims at investigating the effectiveness of Project-Based Tasks on International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) Students’ Writing Skills. The participants were 9 second-year IBDP students at Manuela Garaicoa de Calderón School. The students were part of a 32-hour treatment where project-based tasks were incorporated in their English ab Initio classes. A mixed methods research design was used for data collection. In order to collect quantitative data, IBDP a pre-test and a post-test were administered to analyze the students’ writing skills before and after the intervention, and a Wilcoxon SignedRank Test was employed to examine the effect of project-based tasks on students’ writing skills. The qualitative data were collected with the purpose of obtaining information about the students’ perceptions toward writing as a result of the implementation of Project-Based Tasks. Thus, a teacher’s journal was kept during the whole phase of intervention, while interviews with students were conducted at the end of it. These instruments were employed to triangulate what the researcher perceived during the intervention and how students felt about writing after the implementation of Project-Based Tasks. Results from the study indicate that students presented improvement in their writing skills after the implementation of ProjectBased Tasks. Additionally, the students presented a positive attitude toward writing, where collaborative work was a key element for writing improvement. In light to the findings, Project-Based Tasks should be adopted in English ab Initio classes since they not only help learners improve their writing skills, but also their motivation toward it.